Clarkson’s Christmas Company

In a house neatly trimmed in red and white lights that may or may not be very near to yours, a man named Clarkson breathed in Christmas. There were, of course, the smells that he quite literally breathed in (and thus also tasted on the air): evergreen, peppermint, and cloves, to name a quintessential few. There were also the sights: stockings and holly and spirals of lights spaced exactly three inches apart up the Christmas tree. There were the feelings: the fire-warmed leather of his armchair, freshly vacuumed carpet, and his fleecy blanket. But most of all, the other feelings: contentment, the warm glow of memories upon memories, and best of all, the assurance that today, Christmas Day, would be just as wonderfully the same as all the previous Christmas Days. It was the only day out of all 365 days that he could really count on, what with the outrageousness of his job and the kids’ ever-changing schedules, and Clarkson was the kind of person who loved to count on things.

Now that you have seen him in his armchair, comfortable and happy and brimming with sweet memories of his many Christmases (which really amounts to one Christmas many times), do not be too harsh on him if he struggles a bit in this story, nor think him too grinchy. He was truly counting on this Christmas to behave like it always had. That’s largely what Clarkson’s Christmas was.

But this was no longer Clarkson’s Christmas.

As he was smiling at the shining pile of presents and reminiscing about how excited little Reuben had been on his first Christmas, the doorbell rang. Clarkson did not move, mostly because the doorbell ringing was not a part of Christmas, and therefore did not exist in his mind.

Ruby came and got the door on the second ring.

“Why, hello,” he heard her say. “If I may ask, Miss…”

“Sheridan. Friend of Clarkson’s. From work, you know. I’m here for Christmas.”

“Oh!” Ruby said, surprised but not flustered, and opened the door wide. “In that case, please come in.”

It was not until that four-foot-seven salmon pink-clad figure marched into the room that Clarkson’s ship of happy contentment struck upon an uncharted reef and scraped to a stop.

“Please sit down,” Ruby said, unaware of the shipwreck of Clarkson’s joy. “Let me bring you some water.”

Ms. Sheridan sat, looking rather too authoritative in Clarkson’s second favorite chair, with her salmon Christmas sweater and salmon Santa hat over her wild wiry hair. If you were wondering, I’m afraid to say that she exclusively and entirely wore salmon pink.

“Merry Christmas, Clarkson.”

Clarkson was not merry. “What are you doing here?”

“Weren’t you listening? Christmas.”

“Why aren’t you with your family?” Clarkson hissed.

“The graveyard’s not festive enough.” Ms. Sheridan, or as we will more often call her, Sherry, was one hundred and seven.

“You can’t be in my house!”

She settled more comfortably into her chair, smugly accepting a crystal glass of water from Ruby.

“Honey…” Ruby said with a glance toward the hallway, and Clarkson gladly left the room with her.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were having a friend from work?” She smiled. Isn’t it funny how people who love surprises and people who hate surprises usually end up marrying each other? “I didn’t know you had such good work friends.”

“I didn’t.” He dragged a hand over his face. Of all the people Clarkson knew, Sherry was the last he wished to introduce his family to (aside from criminals, of whom he’d met a fair few). “Don’t worry, I’ll ask her to leave.”

Ruby’s eyes went round. “But she doesn’t have any family!” Evidently she had caught the graveyard comment. “She feels she can come to you for Christmas— you must be such a friend to her.” Ruby was the kind of person who always believed the best of people.

Clarkson debated informing her that Sherry had shown up with the intention of irritating his Christmas to death, but he really liked his wife believing so well of him, so he hesitated.

“I don’t mind the company,” she continued. “And it’s been a bit since we’ve had company for Christmas…”

They hadn’t had any holiday guests since before their children, Clarissa and Reuben, were born, which made “a bit” a grand under-exaggeration.

“But our Christmas together…” Clarkson pleaded, clinging to the last pieces of his shipwrecked happiness.

Ruby looked up at him with eyes softer and sweeter than chocolate pudding, and just the same color. Clarkson’s heart sank with his ship. He could never resist that look.

“I’ll tell her she can stay,” he muttered, and Ruby kissed his cheek.

He returned to his chair across from Sherry, its allure rather lost to him. “Take off your shoes.”

“I need the arch support.”

“I’ve seen your feet,” Clarkson snapped.

Sherry grinned and left her salmon shoes on.

Clarissa and Reuben bounced into the room— ready for Christmas in their red plaid pajamas— and stopped abruptly when they saw the tiny, wiry old lady perched across from their father.

“You kiddies are a lot cuter than your daddy,” Sherry said before Clarkson could unclamp his jaw for the introductions.

They looked at each other, then at Clarkson.

“Children, this is Ms. Sheridan. She’s here for Christmas.”

“It’s Sherry.” She leaned forward, peering mischievously at them. “Don’t you kiddies worry, I’m here to make this Christmas a real humdinger.”

“This is my house and my Christmas and we will do it MY way,” Clarkson said a little too loudly. Deep down, even he knew that the wheel was out of his hands.

Sherry smirked. “What’s first?”

“Can we do presents?” Reuben asked, which was the only reasonable question for a ten-year-old boy at this point.

“Yes,” Clarkson declared, suddenly cheered by the fact that there were no presents for Ms. Sheridan. “Let’s do presents! Ruby?”

Ruby swept in with a wrapped gift in each hand, which she handed to Sherry. They turned out to be hand towels (which Sherry later re-gifted— they were green) and a tin of licorice (which she kept).

Clarkson glowered his way through presents. Yes, he smiled at all the right times, but underneath it was really just a glower. But Reuben and Clarissa enjoyed themselves immensely, especially when Sherry started a snowball fight with wads of wrapping paper, and Ruby enjoyed them enjoying themselves. Poor Clarkson. It’s not easy to be an enemy of change.

After all the wrapping paper was lost or in shreds, Ruby herded them into the dining room for a brunch feast. Clarkson said nothing to Sherry except for asking her to pass the kringle, which she proceeded to pass the long way around, and he said little to his family. He was too busy souring away. But Sherry said quite a lot, telling story after story of her wacky adventures. The children giggled and chattered, enthralled with their father’s funny friend.

“Did you really turn into a salamander?” Clarissa asked, who at twelve was old enough to start picking and choosing what she believed.

“None of that,” Clarkson said sharply.

Sherry gave him a rather disappointed look, but did not elaborate, saying only, “That’s what I said, honeybunches.”

You are now also probably wondering if Sherry can turn into a salamander. However, at this moment, Clarkson has decided to move things along so that we and his family have no time to consider this strange possibility. We will have to examine it later on.

“Let’s play cards,” Clarkson said, scooping up all the half-eaten dishes with remarkable efficiency. By cards, he meant the same game they always played on Christmas. The children somewhat reluctantly obliged, fetching the game and shuffling and dealing the cards.

As the youngest, Reuben went first, followed by his sister. Sherry was next, breaking the age order, which irked Clarkson. And to their surprise, she laid down two cards.

“You can only play one,” Reuben said.

“Sure, if I only have one, but I’ve got me two fives.” She looked around at their blank stares. “Hillbilly pie, don’t you have house rules?”

“The house rules are the rulebook,” Clarkson said sternly.

Sherry ignored him. “You sad people have been living like regular woebegones! Here, let’s make this more slap-hap-dandy.” By which she meant, fun, entertaining, and by the glint in her watery green eyes, riotous.

She proceeded to give them a whole new list of rules, some reasonable and others ridiculous, like having to say “purple pickles” every time anyone played a two, with the last responder drawing a card, or silencing the person to your left when you played a nine, a curse which could only be broken when they also played a nine.

“Preposterous—” Clarkson began to say, but Sherry played a nine on him, and Reuben and Clarissa burst out laughing.

They played several rounds, everyone scoring at least one win except Clarkson, who refused to use any advantage from Sherry’s rules and got all the “purple pickle” cards. Aside from Clarkson, they made quite the merry group, laughing and jabbering good naturedly. You would have liked to join them. 

“What would you like to do, honey?” Ruby asked, kindly trying to soothe some of the sting her husband was suffering.

He thought for a moment. “Charades.”

Because at least in charades there could be no house rules, and the conversation would be more controlled. Thus, Sherry would have fewer opportunities to say absurd things.

I hope you know by now that this was a false hope.

So they trooped back into the living room, Ruby digging out the deck of suggestion cards. Clarissa started them off with a very good impression of a rockstar, flinging her black ringlets every which way and giggling so violently that Clarkson grinned for the first time since Sherry had come through the door. He even loosened up enough to act out a trash can, which he did by holding his nose and wafting the air with quite a bit of flair. Sherry guessed everything wrong with the utmost certainty, insisting that Clarkson’s trash can was a quagmire and Ruby’s cello was a saw. Needless to say, she did not acquire a single point. Clarkson’s mood slowly turned. Perhaps he could get through the day.

And then it was Sherry’s turn.

She declined the card Ruby offered to her and posed before them in all her wrinkled glory. She smiled slyly. “Time to give you kids a gen-u-ine whizbanger!”

And then Sherry did something a little mean. It was, of course, for the kids, and it was funny and surprising and impressive, amazing even, but it was also just the tiniest smidge mean to Clarkson. Because she knew he wouldn’t like it, and it was more than obvious to everyone that he had been struggling with his precious Christmas Day being tampered with. In a back door way, he had even asked that she not do what she was about to do. 

In a sudden puff and pop, Sherry vanished, and a knee-high, salmon pink creature stood before them. It was akin to an armadillo, but soft and with longer ears and a bigger nose.

“Whoa!” Reuben and Clarissa cried.

Sherry did what seemed to be an awkward little bow. It’s hard to do with short, stubby legs. 

Now, if you’re still wondering about the salamander comment, yes, Sherry really did turn into a salamander once. See, Sherry’s special (but very odd) ability was that she could turn into animals. But she couldn’t choose the animal, and she could only sort of choose the time, and regardless of either factor, she was always and forever salmon pink.

“That’s incredible!” Ruby said, clearly still wondering if she should believe her eyes. “Are you an… anteater?” 

But Clarkson was like an electric kettle of rage which had just been switched on and was now about to boil.

 “Ms. Sheridan!” he barked, “You will not engage in such behavior in MY house!”

“But Daddy, it’s so cool!” Clarissa said.

Sherry spun in a circle, showing off her long nose.

“I want to be like that!” Reuben said admiringly.

That did it. Not only was the kettle pushed to a thunderous boil, but a piece of something very fragile broke off inside of Clarkson, the sharp edges scratching him up and leaving him not only angry, but sad, and even a little scared.

Clarkson stood, staring down at the horrible, ludicrous pink thing.

“Get OUT of my house! Get OUT of my Christmas!”

He stomped out.

We are going to leave the children and Sherry, who was now looking more like a remorseful anteater than a happy one, in the living room and follow Ruby to their bedroom, which is where Clarkson had fled to.

She closed the door behind her and softly sat on the edge of the bed beside him. She waited.

“He wants to be like her,” he finally said, his tone flat.

She waited some more.

“I know I’m at work a lot…”

“But?”

Clarkson stared at his slippered toes, not really seeing them. “I’m trying to take care of them. I’m trying to make them happy.”

Ruby took his hand. “And see? They’ve been so happy today.”

“Without me,” he said miserably.

“Maybe,” Ruby said gently, “Sometimes the best way to make them happy is to join them in their happiness.”

“I suppose they wish I was like her.”

“No. You’re their daddy.”

When he didn’t respond, she pushed an auburn curl from her face and found his eyes. “They’re happiest when you’re with them, not when you’re worried about what you think “happy” should be.”

“She isn’t supposed to be here.”

“But she is. And she’s your friend.”

And somehow, when Ruby said these words, Clarkson realized that, despite all her unhingedness and a long list of disagreements, Sherry was his friend, and in her own strange way, she was trying to be his family’s friend too. Perhaps she wasn’t trying to destroy his Christmas. Perhaps she was trying to make it their Christmas.

He stood, still holding his wife’s hand. “It’s Reuben’s turn.”

Ruby smiled.

They re-entered the living room. Sherry was no longer an animal and there was a tinge of solemnity in her eyes. She greeted him with no quip or jab, merely continuing to collect her things.

“Ms. Sheridan, wait,” Clarkson said. Yes, he was a little stiff, but that’s Clarkson for you. “Ruby and I would like you to stay for dinner.”

Sherry grinned. “Hillbilly pie, what bashed your brains? Sure sonny, I’ll stay and eat your wife’s dandy dinner.”

Before he could regret his decision, Clarkson sat down on the couch. “Son, wasn’t it your turn?”

Reuben brightened. “Almost, but we have to guess what Sherry was first!”

“I said anteater,” Ruby volunteered.

“Taper!” Clarissa said, remembering that she had just done an assignment mentioning the creatures.

“It could be aardvark,” Clarkson said. They all looked at Sherry, who shrugged.

“You whippersnappers got bigger noggins than this old lady— how’m I supposed to know?”

That got the biggest laugh of all of Christmas Day. If you had been standing in the street, you certainly would’ve heard it (and you also would’ve been very confused, and you never would’ve guessed why there was such giggling and cackling). It was not only the biggest laugh, but it was the best laugh too. I think you know why. It was the best because Clarkson, our dear, stiff but loyal Clarkson, was laughing the hardest of all.

It was a merry Christmas indeed.

(And in case you’re dying to know, a quick internet search confirmed that Sherry had spent seven minutes of her life as an aardvark. So if you agreed with Clarkson’s guess, you get a point too. Either way, you’ll probably beat Sherry at charades.)