hang a shiny star upon the highest bough.......

Noon.......the day before Christmas Eve.

A man dressed in a smart tailored suit and smart italian leather shoes, looked at his watch as he rushed out of the boardroom from a morning meeting. He hadn't bought any presents for his family yet. Too busy with matters of grave importance pertaining to the firm, he had given himself the lunch hour to do his shopping. He had to be back to the office for yet another meeting at 1pm sharp. Disturbed that he was pulled away from his work to shop, he wore his annoyance all over his tired face....a face that once exuded zestful energy and not one wrinkle. Now it held furrows and frowns. Burden weighed him down.

Christmas this year seemed more of an irritation than a celebration to him. He could do without it. Too many important things to attend to. He was going to have a couple of days off and the very thought of slowing down seemed foreign, like a missing memory. It comforted him to know that despite the "downtime," he would be able to stay wired and connected through his blackberry and his laptop. As he considered the amount of work he had ahead of him, he stepped out onto the busy street bustling with other harried business people and shoppers rushing past looking as haggard as he felt.

The air was crisply fresh, unlike the staleness of the boardroom and he took some good breaths to fill his tired lungs. The snow began to fall lightly which made the pavement slick. He carefully walked towards the parking lot, talking on his cellphone as he passed the people on the streets like they weren't human, passed the young homeless kid busking for money. He reached his car, got in got in quickly and headed to the shopping mall, only to realize that salt stains had penetrated his prized shoes and the back cuff of his suit. He cursed the air and rammed the car into drive.


It took ages to find a parking spot. With the sounds of cheesy jazz sprinkled Christmas songs pouring out of the car radio, he felt like he was in the middle of a nightmare. Not only did he detest shopping, he abhored the sweatiness of the crowds. While he waited for the woman to get into her car and pull out of the parking spot, he texted two clients and checked his emails, then pulled into the space. Before he got out of car, he pulled the list his daughter had passed to him this morning on his way out the door. She had told him that she made a list of items her Mom would like and a few she would like too. He unfolded the paper and sat staring at the 4 words scribbled down.....

"The Spirit of Christmas....."

"hmmmmm"...........he thought........"it must be the name of perfume."

"Do you still have any spirit of Christmas left?" asked the very busy businessman to the woman behind the perfume counter.

"Why......yes I do I think, though I'm running out very quickly. I've been on my feet behind this counter for hours listening to the same bloody carols over and over again while spritzing enough perfume to gag an elephant......but, yes i think I still have some spirit of Christmas," she stated, a little flustered about her long winded answer.

Puzzled, the man obliviously carried on......."can i see some please......."

"See what exactly?" asked the clerk, wondering if this serious looking man wanted her to sing O Holy night to get him the mood or something.

"This Spirit of Christmas....my wife and daughter want it for Christmas" he answer with a note of impatience in his voice.

"I don't have a perfume with that name but let me see if I can find one that has the aroma of the season. Maybe that's what they were referring to........ here is one........" She sprayed it onto a piece of paper and let him smell it.

Wasting no more time on this pedantic process, he gruffly stated,"Gimme two. "

As she wrapped up the purchase feeling his disdain and impatience, the clerk suggested that perhaps his wife and daughter were referring to something entirely different. He took the parcel, turned and walked away without even acknowledging her, but thinking about what she said. Maybe they did mean something else. "What a pain in the ass this is! I feel like I'm on some scavenger hunt for God's sake," he mumbled to himself as he headed to the book store.

Without wasting time, he marched up to the very busy bookstore Manager who was surrounded by a handfull of patrons quietly waiting their turn for his attention. The very busy entitled businessman butt through the crowd and interupted the Manager......."Can you show me where the spirit of Christmas is? I'm in a hurry."

Having dealt with this scrooge type before, the Manager pointed at the second aisle and said....."you'll find all things spirit related on the second shelf near the back of the store. Good luck to you."

The business man pushed his way through the crowd again and barged down the second aisle until he was standing in front of a stack of books all with the word " spirit " in the title. He grabbed one entitled "Everything you need to know about the Spirit of Christmas but were too afraid to ask......." and another "Let the Spirit Move You. Finding the Right Positioning for Maximum Enlightment." He stepped in front of the waiting patrons, paid with his Visa and marched out the door. In no time,his mind already back in the boardroom, he was back in his car, headset on, peeling out of the parking lot.

When he reached the office, he took the parcels to his secretary and asked her to wrap them for him....... She looked at the perfume and book titles and asked him why he chose those particular items.

"Sandy and Anna told me they wanted the spirit of Christmas this year. So, I went to the perfume counter and the clerk who was a nutcase and told me that this perfume smelled like the spirit of Christmas. Then she suggested maybe that's not what they meant. So, I thought maybe they wanted books on the spirit of Christmas, so I picked up these two. They seemed to fit the bill, " he answered. Will you wrap them for me? I have to get to the meeting and I don't have time."

"Of course I will," said the very lovely and insightful secretary. "I'd love to. Go off to your meeting and don't worry about it."

She had known this business man for a long time and had worked with him for many years. They were a good team, though she had been worried about how much he had changed.......how his love of life had somehow slipped out of his repetoire. It had happened in rapid succession after the death of his grandmother, the one person he always relied on and then the subsequent disappearance of his son whom he had pushed out the door after a longstanding row between the two of them over his son's career and personal choices. It seemed like a one two punch he never fully recovered from. Instead he immersed himself in the firm's business and repressed the desolation rather than dealt with it. It seemed like an emotional domino effect, and she wondered if he had purposefully isolated himself, or put up a protective shield so as not get caught feeling hurt by the people he loved again.

She decided it was time to intervene a little.......time to help him let go of the shield. So, as her boss entered the boardroom for yet another meeting, she pulled on her coat and headed out of the office........books and perfume in hand........in search of the spirit of Christmas. She headed down the snow slick city street, and stopped to throw some coins in the busker's hat which was laying on the ground and then looked up into the man's eyes and saw a twinkling familiarity.

"Josh?"

to be continued.....