Category Archives: Holidailies

Merchild Christmas with Whales

An Excerpt from “A MerChild’s Christmas with Whales”

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Merchild Christmas with Whales

There are always Aunties in the Mermaid Coves. The same Aunties. And on solstice mornings, with landwalker-entrancing song and candy darters, they would send me out to play and I would glide through the swaying kelp searching for news of the Seven Seas, and always find a barnacle-crusted whale by the deep trench or perhaps a clownfish with its colors dimmed by the colder water.

Merfolk and sea-creatures would be swooping and diving, riding the current with bubble-blown sighs and salt-scrubbed faces, all shimmering pale, their flicking fins and glinting scales catching the reflection of the sun against the careless tides.

Fronds of seaweed and clusters of anemones were draped over the branching coral in all the grottos; there were jugs of briny nectar, and succulent shellfish, and too many varieties of plankton and cheesefish and shellcrackers. Crabs in their crusty coats skittered near the phosphorescent rocks and the bioluminescence lit the caverns, making them ready for tales and shanties galore.

Some few large mermen sat on carved couches without their ceremonial sashes, Uncles all of them, trying their new conch pipes – holding them at arm’s length then returning them to their lips, blowing mournful tones like muted foghorns then holding them out again as though waiting for a whalesong reply.

And those loving Aunties, not needed to tend the cauldrons of fish stew (or for anything else, really) perch on the edges of their limestone chairs, poised but fierce, ready to crack shell and splash tail, but also on guard for the impending arrival of Sandy Klaws.

With apologies to Dylan Thomas.
rompope

Cidre, Ponche, & Rompope

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rompope

Since it’s New Years Eve, it seems appropriate to talk about the three drinks that are used to celebrate Christmas in Mexico: Cidre, Ponche and Rompope.

Cidre is exactly what it sounds like: hard sparkling cider. Some people like it sweet, while others prefer dryer varieties, but either way apple is the traditional flavor.

And speaking of apple, there’s another apple-based drink that’s had at Christmas: ponche. Ponche – or punch – is sort of a cross between hot cider and wassail. It’s made with dried fruit (usually apple or pear), hot water, brown sugar, spices, when it’s done, you can drink it just like that, or add rum. The most traditional ponche is stirred with a stalk of sugar cane, but we just used a spoon.

And finally, there’s Rompope. This is a drink similar to eggnog, but it’s not as sweet, and it’s sold bottled with rum already mixed in. It’s also served at room temperature. Some brands have pictures of saints on the label, some don’t, but it’s a lovely holiday treat, and very festive.

If you’re wondering which is my favorite, I like them all, but I think Rompope is the one I like most. It’s one of those drinks that can soothe a sore throat and warm your entire body, with just a tiny sip, and while it’s usually available only for Christmas, we bought the last bottle in town for our New Year’s celebration.

Whatever you’re drinking tonight, I hope you’re safe and warm, and that 2020 brings you joy and peace.

Felices fiestas.

tamales

Tamales

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tamales

One of my favorite times of year is Tamale Season. Other people know this as Christmastime, Advent, or just the holiday season, but whatever you call it, from around Thanksgiving through the first of the new year, tamales are on the menu.

In Mexico, of course, they’re a traditional Christmas food, and Mexican tamales always come with an olive – with the pit still in it – in the center.

Some people say that the olive represents Mary holding the Christ Child within her, and some people say it represents all mothers and their future children.

But the reality is that whether they’re wrapped in cornhusks or banana leaves, tamales predate Christianity, so it’s more likely that the olive represents the seeds we plant for future harvests.

Whatever the meaning really is, I think we can all agree that tamales are a tasty treat, made more special by being limited to specific times of the year.

Felices Fiestas.

Mazapánes

Mazapánes

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Mazapánes

Like buñuelos, mazapánes only come out for the holidays. Individually wrapped  in either waxed paper or colored saran wrap, these are light, with an almost shortbread-like texture, made with peanuts, and just sweet enough that one is completely satisfying, though we could all easily eat five or six.

There is some debate about whether they’re a cookie or a candy (they feel like a cookie to me) and whether there is any flour in the recipe. (Most recipes only list peanuts, peanut butter, and powdered sugar, but they may not be accurate.)

The mazapánes we have were gifted to my mother by her friend An, who apparently makes masses of them every year. (An is a gourmet cook and loves to share her food.)

When Mom brought these around at her posada, all the Mexican guests immediately lit up, recognizing the special holiday treat. The American and Canadian guests had to be introduced to this new delicacy.

Everyone agreed they were delicious.

And An has promised to send me the recipe… once she figures out how to write it out in English.

bunuelos

Buñuelos

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bunuelos

Just as the Madrillenos (citizens of Madrid) greet the morning with churros and chocolate, the Mexicans have a tradition of eating buñuelos at Christmas time.

Traditionally, these are caseras  – homemade. You can’t typically buy them in stores, though sometimes you might pass someone selling them on the street. (We had Lupita make a bunch for us, both for the posada we hosted on Saturday evening, and to eat with hot chocolate this morning.) Also traditionally, you make them and gift them to other people.

So what are buñuelos? Well, they’re about the diameter of a corn tortilla, but they’re typically made of wheat flour, milk, sugar, and egg, fried into a light, thin, crispy crepe-like thing, and then sprinkled with cinnamon sugar while they’re still warm.

After that, you can dress them up, or not. The most popular thing to do is drizzle them with honey, but I like them plain, dipped in piping-hot cocoa.

They crunch at first, then melt in your mouth – just a touch of sweetness. But unlike churros, these are only made at Christmas.

Lupita's pico de gallo

Lupita’s Frutería

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Lupita's pico de gallo

This week, instead of fiction, I’m sharing some of the holiday traditions and experiences I’m having while visiting my mother in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico.

There is a store in El Centenario that you get to by turning off the highway at the sign with the flags and the simple descriptor “frutería.”

In English, this is a greengrocer. A produce stand. But Lupita’s frutería is so much more.

First, of course, there is Lupita herself. She’s a small woman with jet black hair and deep berry lipstick, and she talks faster, even, than I do, with a cheery expression that you cannot help but mimic.

Then, there’s her produce. She doesn’t always have everything you want, but what she does have is excellent. Sweet potatos. Bananas. Tomatos. Avocados. Onions. All the staples you need.

But the real reason people visit her store – the not-so-secret, super secret reason – is her pico de gallo.

Now, pico de gallo itself is not a difficult thing to make. It’s just tomatos, onions, chili peppers and cilantro, maybe with a little bit of salt.

Something about Lupita’s pico de gallo, though, is just… effervescent. Not literaly. It doesn’t bubble. But it tastes amazingly fresh, and it seems to carry with it the essence of Lupita herself. We bought a container of it on Thursday afternoon, and by bedtime, we’d finished the container. (I did not measure the container.)

My mother says there was at least one time when she got the last container Lupita had for sale that day, and saw other customers walk away disappointed.

Chips and salsa aren’t something you put out at parties here. It’s considered “cheating” to offer something that simple. But everyone loves them, and everyone eats it.

Especially if it’s the pico de gallo from Lupita’s frutería.

The Bacon Guy's Truck

Huevos y Tocino (Eggs and Bacon)

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This week, instead of fiction, I’m sharing some of the holiday traditions and experiences I’m having while visiting my mother in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico.

The Bacon Guy's Truck

In this episode, I want to tell you about huevos y tocino – eggs and bacon.

While La Paz, and my mother’s suburb, El Centenario, do have grocery stores, mini-marts, and corner stores, just as you find in the states, the locals, and most of the ex-pats who are mindful about where their food comes buy as much as they can from local vendors.

BaconIn El Centenario, that means if you want chicken or eggs, you call Alex. Alex also services the pools for a lot of the people in my mother’s neighborhood, but that’s just because he works hard. At his house, across the highway from my mom’s neighborhood, he raises chickens. You call him and ask if he’ll be around and tell him how many chickens or eggs you want, and then when you show up at his house (it has white gates) and he has harvested the chickens – killed, plucked and cleaned, and cut into parts if you don’t want them whole – or eggs (also cleaned) and you pay him. (It was  100 pesos for a dozen eggs.) When you’ve finished your eggs, you return the egg crates to Alex, for reuse.

Getting bacon (or smoked pork chops, ham, or chorizo) is a similar process. You drive to the bacon guy’s house. (I forgot to ask his first name, and everyone just calls him ‘the bacon guy’) His commercial truck was parked in his driveway. When we went, his wife was in the window of their laundry room, and she gestured us toward the back of the house, where the bacon guy came out in his butcher apron, and asks what you want, how much, and how you’d like it cut.

We asked for a kilo of bacon, sliced thin, and he brought us chunks of freshly smoked ham to taste while we waited. He put on fresh gloves and went to slice and package our order.

More baconThe ham was amazing, juicy and hot, a little salty, a little sweet, just as it should be. I considered asking for some, but we already had an overflowing fridge, and none of us really eat that much ham.

It only took him a few minutes, and when he gave us our precious package of meat candy, he also brought us paper napkins to clean our hands. The cost for a kilo of bacon was $120 mxp, or a bit over six dollars, US.

Truthfully, it’s a little hard to see slabs of raw meat hanging there, some cured, some waiting to be, but I believe that if you’re going to eat meat, you should be familiar with how it’s processed, just as you should be mindful of where it comes from.

Our huevos and tocino purchases allowed us to get the freshest ingredients, while also supporting local small businesses, and that makes me really happy.

La Paz

Getting to La Paz

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La Paz

During the holidays, instead of fiction, I’m sharing some of the traditions and experiences I’m having while visiting my mother in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. She’s lived here for a bit over 19 years, and we’ve visited her almost every year, beginning with her very first Christmas here, and while the city has changed, and she’s moved house a couple of times, and we lost my stepfather last year, we still embrace the combination of our old family traditions with the new ones we’ve learned here.

Today, I want to tell you about getting to La Paz. When we lived in California, we could fly to LAX and then take any number of airlines into La Paz, but now that we live in Texas (and there are fewer US-based airlines who land in La Paz at all) we fly to Los Cabos – that’s the collective term for the region at the southern tip of the Baja peninsula that includes Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo – rent a car, and drive up the Baja on old Mexico Highway 1.

There’s another, faster highway, but Route 1 twists and turns up into the mountains along the gulf coast, skirting through East Cape, where we always stop at Los Barriles for lunch at Roadrunner Café. Los Barriles has a huge ex-pat population – mostly folks from the US and Canada –  and the prices reflect that, but the food and service at Roadrunner are usually good, and there are clean bathrooms.

From there, we go through San Bartolo, El Triunfo (home of a piano museum), and into La Paz, around the bay to Chametla, where one of our favorite cafes is, and then into El Centenario, where my mom actually lives. These are their own towns, but they’re still part of the greater La Paz municipality.

A good portion of the trip is pigtail turns and switchbacks through the mountains, and we often have to stop while cows or goats cross the road, but it’s also beautiful, and it feels like a transition from home to vacation.

It’s a three-hour drive, but it’s worth the slightly longer trip.

37icicles

37 Icicles

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37icicles

Seventy-three cents doesn’t buy you much, but the price of love is difficult to measure. Take Ben and Anna for example. They’d met in San Francisco, at a café called All You Knead, when Anna had dumped a plate of spaghetti in Ben’s lap. Fortunately, he hadn’t been horribly mad. In fact, he’d found her apology charming.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s my first week here, and I overbalanced and… can I make it up to you? I could pay for your dry cleaning?”

“They’re jeans,” Ben pointed out. “No dry-cleaning required. A new plate would be fine… and maybe a towel?”

“Sure thing.” And she’d gone into the kitchen for new food and a clean towel, returned with both, and thought no more about it, until later, when she’d gone to bus the table and found he’d left a tip of only seventy-three cents and a note that read, “You’re wonderful, but this is all I had. Call me?” His phone number was scrawled at the bottom.

Anna never called him – to be honest, she’d stuck his note in her pocket and forgotten it, but fate had something planned for the pair, because he bumped into her – literally – at the laundromat a few days later.

“Hey, it’s you!” Ben said, and his smile caused dimples in his cheeks.

“It’s me,” Anna said. “Oh, you’re washing your jeans, right?”

“Um… and other stuff… and I have other jeans, obviously.”

“Oh, right, sorry.”  She hesitated, the offered. “Well, let me treat you to a load? I really am sorry about the spaghetti incident…” She reached into her change purse to give him some coins for the machines, and blushed. “I’m out of quarters,” she said. “I’ve only got seventy-two – no, seventy-three cents left. Here, take it… I owe you two cents.” Her dark eyes were glowing with amusement. “I swear it’s not the same seventy-three cents you left me.”

“God, that was the worst tip ever,” he said.

“Well, I sort of deserved it.”

“True. Look… I’m gonna be here a while, but there’s a café across the street. If you’re willing to keep an eye on my stuff while you’re folding yours, I’ll get us each a coffee.”

“It’s a deal,” she said. “Cream, no sugar.”

“Okay.”

Their laundromat coffee-date ended up lasting until the owner strongly suggested they take their bins of folded clothes and go home, so he could. He even held the door open for them, and he never did that.

Anna shoved her laundry basket into the back seat of her vintage VW Beetle, then turned to lean on it. “I washed your number…” she told Ben. “I stuck your note in my pocket and got busy… I go to the culinary school and between that and work, it’s exhausting…. And then I washed the jeans I’d been wearing that day…”

“Well, I could give it to you again.”

“Sure… or…”

“Or?”

“Come home with me and I’ll cook a meal for both of us.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

That dinner turned into dating, and an engagement, and marriage. During those years, Anna finished her program at the culinary academy and Ben got his business degree. Not long after their marriage, they inherited an old diner from Anna’s aunt Molly, and turned it into a coffeehouse with an art studio in the back. As business grew, they expanded their menu from coffee and pastries to bistro fare – soups, salads, and sandwiches. One thing that never changed, however, was that you could get a regular cup of coffee and a lemon cookie shaped like a crescent moon for only seventy-three cents.

Their coffeehouse wasn’t the only thing that flourished. Bella Luna became a sort of community center of the funky beach town where they lived – less than an hour from San Francisco, but a completely different world – with live music on Friday and Saturday nights and pick-up Shakespeare on Sunday afternoons. Their patrons weren’t just customers, they were friends, and even chosen family, and when Ben and Anna had their first child, a dark eyed, curly haired girl they named Marin, the coffeehouse folk became her aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers.

Life wasn’t always perfect.  The first year of the coffeehouse was a struggle, and they both took side gigs to bring in cash. Ben sold paintings and gave art lessons – business school had been a concession to his parents – and Anna took special orders for bread, rolls, muffins, and cookies.

The year Marin turned two, there was a tragedy of another sort. Anna always swore she only turned away for a second, and all of a sudden, the toddler had toppled the Christmas tree, and was on her ass in the middle of the bent branches and broken glass ornaments, crying her heart out.

Anna didn’t blame her daughter. Accidents happen after all, but some of her ornaments had been family heirlooms and couldn’t be replaced. While drying her child’s tears, Anna cried her own. The pair were still sitting on the couch when Ben came home.

They cleaned up the mess, had dinner, and put Marin to bed. “We can get new ornaments,” Ben assured his wife. “We can create our own heirlooms.”

And they did.

Each of the artists and students who used the studio created an ornament for Ben and Anna’s tree. Anna (with Marin’s “help”) made paper chains and strung popcorn and cranberries. The end result was eclectic, but also charming, and very real.

“It doesn’t shine, though,” Anna said. “I shouldn’t complain… but I miss the way the glass ornaments caught the twinkle lights and reflected them.”

“We could use tinsel.”

“No, if Marin or the dog get into it, it could be dangerous.”

“I’ll think of something.”

But the tree remained as it was until Christmas eve.

That night, Ben came home from closing the coffeehouse with a wrapped shoebox in his hands. Marin was already in bed, but that was okay. His gift was for Anna.

“Sweetie… you didn’t have to buy me anything.”

“I saw this at the church gift store… you know they’re always selling wreaths and ornaments during Advent. Old Gladys insisted on wrapping it. Open it, please?”

“Okay,” Anna said. And she ripped open the paper not much more daintily than Marin would have. Then she opened the box. Inside were a bunch of tree ornaments (hooks thoughtfully provided), all of the same type. Faintly pearl colored, mostly translucent, with a hint of glitter for shine. “Icicles!” she said. “You found icicles…”

“I saw them on the sale table and had to get them to you. You need your tree to shine.”

“How many are there? It looks like a thousand,” Anna said.

“Not quite,” Ben said. “There are thirty-seven.”

“That’s a really odd number for a collection.”

“Gladys said there were originally fifty, but some got lost over the years. She said make sure you count them before and after you put them on the tree.”

“After?”

“After you remove them,” Ben explained. “Some were lost because  they sort of hide within the branches. They never thought to count.”

“Makes sense. Help me put them on.”

And so, Ben and Anna hung the thirty-seven icicles on the tree. When they were done, Ben brought peppermint tea to their couch and they sat and watched the way the tree seemed to shine from within. The icicles weren’t obvious. They could barely be seen unless someone was looking for them. But they added the final touch that Anna had been missing.

They sipped their tea and caught up on the rest of the day’s news, sharing special things that had happened, and knowing their daughter would wake them up at dawn.

As they finally headed for bed, Anna mused aloud. “Thirty-seven icicles. You know thirty-seven is the reverse of seventy-three?”

Ben paused in the hallway and pulled his wife close. “See, it was fate. We were meant to have them.”

 

Special thanks to Mark, the Encaffeinated One for providing the first line.
christmas-tall-ship-500x310

Sea Story

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christmas-tall-ship-500x310

I’m not sure this is true, since like most of the best sea stories, he started with the phrase “This is no shit,” but my grandfather has been telling it every Christmas since the dawn of time (or at least my entire lifetime) and it’s become a piece of family history.

It was a cold and dark December evening, and Grandfa had only recently arrived on Solstice. As you might expect, a planet named for the point at which the sun was at its most northerly or southerly point relative to the equator was a place of extremes. Summers on Solstice were hot and dry, while winters were intense. Miserable even, with near-constant blizzard conditions, broken only by bouts of freezing rain. And of course, it wasn’t really December… not on Solstice… but it was nearly Christmas, so the Earth-named month would do.

Just like any new frontier, whether it was the old west or a colony world, Solstice in its early days had a reputation for being a bit… rough. Grandfa, newly recruited into the SSP (Shore and Sea Patrol), was just twenty-two, and while he’d grown up on the water, he was accustomed to holographic weather interfaces, sophisticated computerized navigation programs, and oceans that had been mostly tamed. Sure, the odd pelagic toothy fish still tried to get up close and personal with an unsuspecting swimmer from time to time, but on Old Earth, Centaurus, and most of the First Worlds, you were never in danger when you were at sea, even in the worst conditions.

Solstice was nothing like that. This was a class five world, which meant technology hadn’t yet progressed beyond early twenty-first century Earth-equivalents. This was intentional. The SpaceFleet and the Department of Expansion had learned that colonies where the founders and first residents had to learn to live with their new homes, and grow with them, were more successful than those where people were just planted with all the tech they were used to ‘back home.’

But I digress.

This is supposed to be Grandfa’s story, not the history of our family’s homeworld.

So… it was a cold and dark December evening, and Grandfa was standing watch on the SSP ship Polaris. There wasn’t a lot of traffic in or out of the Crystal City port at that time of year. Cargo shipments of gifts and specialty items for the winter holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Arcturian Moon Howl Festival and the Pacifican Celebration of the Stars, among them) typically came through the spaceport not the seaport, but there were still the occasional locals who went for winter sails, and got fouled up in the ice floes, or simply got too drunk on spiced wine to navigate home safely.

You could go days – a week even – and the night watch would never have to do more than stare at the sky.

(“And it was fuckin’ brilliant,” Grandfa would say. “Something about the clear, cold air made the stars seem brighter and closer than usual… as if you could reach up and pluck one from the sky.”)

It came as quite a shock, then, when the comm-sys came to life and an anxious voice called for help. “Mayday, mayday, can anyone hear me?” The voice sounded like a child, but Grandfa couldn’t swear that it really was a kid.

“Something in the tone… seemed like maybe it was really an adult with a young-ish voice,” Grandfa explained, then went back to the story.

“This is the patrol ship, Polaris,” Grandfa answered, opening up the computer program used to track incidents. (They had some tech, just not a lot.) “What’s your trouble? What’s your position?”

“We’re caught on the ice,” the voice came back. “My… uh… captain is hurt and can’t navigate. Can you help us?”

“What’s your position?” Grandfa asked again. He couldn’t wake his captain, or the rest of the crew, until he had real information to work with.

“We’re… I think we’re about two hours sailing time from Crystal City Port… I can… I can see the beam from the lighthouse. I’m not… I’m not a sailor. I’m aboard to handle livestock.”

Grandfa was a bit surprised by that. Sane people didn’t transport livestock by sea in December. Not on Solstice. “What’s the name of your vessel? And what’s the bearing to the light?”

“We’re a… we’re the Northern Lights. The light is… um… right… which one is right again? Starboard? The light is off our starboard side… about… if you’re looking at a clock it’s about at the two position.”

Grandfa did the math. Caught in the ice with the light visible to starboard meant… okay… he thought he had it. “Stand by, Northern Lights.” He rang the alarm to wake his captain and the crew, provided the information.

“Your, watch is nearly over, lad,” the captain said in her warm voice. “But the vessel in distress knows your voice. You wanna stay with them?”

“Yes, Captain, I do.” Sure, going below to the warm-and-dry would be nice, but Grandfa wanted to know the crashed ship was okay. The Polaris officers managed to plot a course to where they expected the distressed vessel would be and made way for her. Time passed.

The night grew colder, the sea grew choppier, and chunks of ice began to appear in the water. The Polaris slowed her speed, and Grandfa took over the binoculars to hunt for the Northern Lights . “I was expecting a barge… after all the voice on the comm had mentioned having livestock aboard, but you’ll never believe what we found.”

(At this point in the story, Grandfa would look around at his audience, building anticipation. Sometimes, he’d even solicit our guesses as to what the vessel was. We’d shout out the most ridiculous things… a spaceship! A toboggan! A pterodactyl!)

“Captain, I’ve found her… I think?”

The captain came to stand with him in the bow. “You think? In waters like these, in the deep cold, you better be sure, lad.”

“Well… I’ve found something.” I handed over the binocs and let the captain decide for herself.

“Daaaamn.” Her response came in a slow, amazed drawl. “I imagined a shuttle that got boggy over the water,  or a barge, but not…”

“A sleigh,” my grandfather said. “Not what I expected either.”

“There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio…” the captain quoted. “Better hail them. See what’s what.”

So Grandfa got on the horn and called out, “Northern Lights, this is Polaris. Are you really… a sleigh?”

“That’s correct,” my original correspondent said. “I can see your lights! Can you help us?”

“We’ll be there shortly,” Grandfa told the voice on the comm. “Who am I speaking with?”

“Me? Oh, I’m Bob.”

Grandfa would have expected a far more exotic name from someone who had managed to crash a sleigh into an iceberg, but Bob it was. The Polaris pulled up as close as they could and that’s when the second surprise came: the sleigh was actually mounted on a barge.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” the captain murmured, quoting Lewis Carroll instead of Shakespeare. “Well, lad, let’s see what’s what.”

And she and Grandfa landed on the ‘berg (after the ice had been tested, of course), and went to offer assistance.

“Ahoy, Bob!” the captain called. “I’m Captain Sawyer and this lad is the one you’ve been talking with. Ensign…”

“Edwards,” Grandfa put in. “Edison Edwards.”

“Ensign Edwards,” the captain repeated. “I don’t see rigging or an engine mount on your vessel, Bob. What’s your method of propulsion?”

“That’s sort of the problem,” Bob said. “Our propulsion system got amorous and broke free. Then we glided into the ice.”

“Amorous? Broke free?” the Captain was not amused. “If you called in a distress signal to prank us in this weather…”

“It’s no prank,” Bob said. “You… you might have heard of the kraken?”

The kraken were a local species. They were sort of like the giant squid of old Earth mythology, but the scientists on Solstice were fairly certain they were sentient.

“You were attacked by kraken? They’re typically docile.”

“No,” Bob said. “Look can you board us and let me explain? Also, if you have a medic, my boss needs aid. He hit his head in the crash.”

Without being told, Grandfa called back to Polaris for a medic to join them. Once he’d arrived, the entire party joined Bob on the barge. “Nick’s below,” he said.

“Nick is your captain?” Grandfa asked.

“In a manner of speaking. We’re not… we’re not really seafarers. We usually have a proper crew, but Nick – he’s the boss – wanted a trial run before Christmas Eve…”

“What’s so special about Christmas Eve?” Captain Sawyer asked.

“Well, we have a lot of deliveries that night… and the barge is new. We used to have a modified shuttle, but atmospheric conditions on Solstice aren’t really great for multiple landings, and the waterways here are so extensive – the seas, the rivers – it seemed logical… but then Blitzen and Prancer caught the scent of a female in heat and went berserk and… well, you saw the crash.”

“Blitzen and Prancer are…?” Sawyer was still confused, which was a relief to my grandfather, because he was, too.

Bob explained. “Oh, kraken. Two of our eight, actually. They’re quite biddable as long as you keep them well fed and let them  swim deep every couple days. And they like to pull things. I mean, ours were trained with only positive reinforcement training. We use operant conditioning. Like they used to with dolphins and dogs back on Earth?”

Grandfa and the captain nodded. The medic had gone below and hadn’t returned yet. The older sailor pushed her hair out of her eyes and said, “Well… Bob… we can tow you out of the ice, and back to port if necessary, but… I’m not sure we can help you reclaim your pets.”

“Blitzen and Prancer aren’t pets,” Bob said. “They’re volunteers. Like I said, they like to pull things. Anyway, they’ll probably return. They know there’s easy food from me.”

“Right then,” Sawyer said. “Edwards, here’s what I need you to do.”

Towing ships out of ice was actually pretty standard for an SSP vessel, so Grandfa got to work securing lines and setting up a  skeleton crew. He volunteered to lead it… and the captain approved despite his youth.

It took a couple of hours, but the Polaris managed to get the Northern Lights out of the ice, and determine that she was undamaged – miraculous, really. As the SSP officers were preparing the sleigh-barge for the longer journey back to port, the medic – Andrews – returned from below.

“Captain, Edwards,  the owner of this contraption would like to see you both for a moment.”

Bob went with them, and they all trooped down below, entering the captain’s wardroom, where they found the captain reclining against the bolsters of his bunk. He was an older man who sported a white beard. He was dressed in red fur, a festive choice, but warm was warm, and his head sported a fresh bandage.

“Ah, there you are… our benefactors!” the old man greeted with far more energy than an injured man had a right to. “Come, let me shake your hands… you’ve saved the Northern Lights. I’m Nick… Nick Winters.”

Grandfa and Captain Sawyer shared a glance – Nick was a dead ringer for the common depiction of Santa Claus, owned a sleigh-barge, and had a team of kraken (supposedly) named Prancer and Blitzen – he was either delusional or he really was… But neither of them voiced their thoughts.

Instead, the captain moved toward the bed, extending her hand. “Happy to help out, Mr. Winter. I’m R – ”

“Rae Sawyer… a ship captain. I should have known,” Nick said. “You always wanted boats and books about sailing when you were a child.”

“Yes, well…”

“Oh, don’t be shocked. We haven’t been operating on Solstice for long – this is only our tenth year.”

“Solstice was only colonized fifty years ago,” Captain Sawyer pointed out.

“I know… we sent things via cargo ship, those first few decades. But now we have operations here, and all is well. Or nearly so.”

“Your assistant… Bob… mentioned that you use kraken to pull the barge?” the captain asked.

“Oh, ho, ho! The kraken. Yes! Yes, we do,” Nick said. “They like to pull things, you know. And they respond well to positive reinforcement training. But the biggest key is that they’re slightly telepathic… unless the pilot loses concentration.”

“Bob said the crash was because your team went off looking for a mate.” Sawyer stated.

“Well, yes, but that was because I was thinking how much I missed my wife. Anna. This time of year, we’re apart more than we’re together. But that’s life, I guess. In any case, Rae – Captain Sawyer – I thank you for your aid.”

“It’s my job, sir,” she said. “I’ve got to get back to Polaris. Edwards, you can stay with Northern Lights til we’re back in port.”

“Aye, Captain,” Grandfa, said, and stepped aside so the senior officer could move out of the room. Once she was gone, he turned to Nick. “You’re him, aren’t you?”

“Him?” Nick looked blank.

“Santa Claus.”

“Yes and no,” Nick answered. “Edison Edwards, twenty-two years old – a rare Solstice native. You dreamed of going into space, then were born onto a low-tech world. But you still asked for model spaceships every year. Do you still have the model of the Lightning?”

“I do!” Grandfa said. “The first faster-than-light ship… it’s still in perfect condition, too. But you said… yes and no?”

“The easiest way to explain it is that Santa Claus isn’t a single person. Hasn’t been since  the Earth got smaller and the galaxy got closer. We’re all of a piece, though – related – because telepathy and perfect recall are important job skills and they’re bred in us.”

“That’s how you all know what someone wants? You cheat?” Grandfa was offended by the idea.

Nick didn’t seem to mind. “Cheat? Is it cheating when the thought is so big you can’t miss it? But no, we never read people without consent. Against the rules. We do share information… sort of a giant database of all of our memories and encounters.”

“That… makes a lot of sense, actually…” Grandfa said. “Anyway, sir, I’d best get up above. Make sure the tow is set. We’ll be underway in a few.”

“Thank you, Mr. Edwards,” said Nick. “And Bob, don’t fret. You didn’t spill any secrets.”

“No, sir. Of course not.”

Grandfa returned to the main deck of the barge, and once focused on his task, let his conversation with the man in the red suit fall to the wayside… as sometimes happened.

* * *

Days later – on Christmas Eve – Grandfa was again standing a nighttime watch on the Polaris, when jingle bells sounded out of the darkness. He turned toward the source of the sound and was surprised to see the Northern Lights towed by – not two, but eight – kraken pull up along-side.

“Mr. Edwards!” Nick Winter called across the water. “Ahoy, lad! I’ve got a bundle for you and your mates. And something special for Captain Sawyer. Look alive!”

An object was thrown, and Grandfa caught it – barely. It was a burlap bag – sealed against weather and water – filled with parcels, one for each member of the crew.

“Disperse them at breakfast!” Nick shouted. “Not before! And Mr. Edwards? Merry Christmas!”

Waiting until morning was no easier for Grandfa at twenty-two than it had been when he was eight… or when I was. But he did. And the next morning the ship’s mess was full of laughter as the seven-person crew opened their gifts. The captain, too, was smiling. She’d been given a vintage sextant, and no one had ever seen her look more delighted.

As to Grandfa, well, his gift was a model of the Lightning II  – an updated version of the original due to launch the next year. As it turned out, he managed to get a posting on it, and while he came back to Solstice to live and raise a family, he got to spend twenty years exploring space, first.

And that’s the story… the story of the night my grandfather saved Santa Claus from an iceberg on a planet where Winter Wonderland wasn’t just a slogan, but a mission statement.

He swears it’s true.

But it could just be a sea story he trots out for the holidays.

— Special thanks to Zack Mann for the opening line.