I’m the wife of Lieutenant Deviled Yeggs, Trinity Naomi Tesla, that’s TNT, Yeggs, but most people call me Naomi.  My husband still calls me Glyce, pronounced “Gliss,” since it is short for Nitroglycerin.  I explode when shaken.  My husband works homicide in the big city of Tracy.  He works with his old partner, Jim Wednesday and his nephew Poached Yeggs.

It was three o’clock Christmas morning.  The phone rang and Dev reached for the phone.

I did not like the idea that someone might have been murdered on Christmas Eve, but I definitely thought that Jim and Poached could handle it.  “Dev, no!  It’s Christmas morning, Dev.”

He answered the phone with a mumbled voice.  Then he said, “I’ll be there.”

I started crying.  I kept saying, “No, no, no.”

Dev shrugged, “It’s the job, Glyce.”

Sophia and Blaise came into the room.  Sophia said, “Dad, we heard the phone ring.  We don’t want to be separated from you on Christmas.  We are coming with you.”

I asked, “Blaise, you have never taken an interest in police work.  Do you really want to go?”

Blaise nodded, “Yes, Mom, I have been working in the lab all year and it seemed that the only day that Dad and I could be together was today, that is except for Sundays.”

I asked, “Does that mean that I am being abandoned on Christmas Day?  I cannot go with you.  Gigi is just eighteen months old.  She cannot be walking around a crime scene.”

Dev said with a flat voice, “Callie will be abandoned, as you call it, with Scarlet Ibis. Tuesday Wednesday will be alone with her brood, and she is pregnant with number five.  Maybe call Pauline.  Once Pink Lady knows you are alone, she’ll invite you over.”

I continued to cry, “But this is Christmas, Dev.”

He nodded, got dressed, and met the teenagers at the car.  I was alone in a big house.  There were presents under the tree, but only Gigi, that is Gloria Grace, G.G., and I were there to celebrate.  She was sound asleep, but for some reason, I could not sleep.  I read a book before the sun came up and I heard Gigi stirring in bed.

As I got Gigi dressed in a cute outfit that Dev and I picked for her to wear on Christmas Day, the phone rang.  It was Callie.

“How dare your husband take Po away on Christmas Day!  We pulled all kinds of strings to postpone us leaving for the Everglades until after Christmas, and now he’s gone.  Aunt Naomi, I need a hug.”  Callie protested.

I agreed with her.  She said she would be over in no time.  There was hardly any traffic at this hour on Christmas morning.  It was starting to snow.  We would have a white and blue Christmas without our husbands.

I made scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes.  We were going to have Belgian Waffles, but maybe that will be on Boxing Day.  Callie came in, took a deep breath, and said that she was starving.

We talked.  She was disappointed because this would be Ibie’s (Scarlet Ibis) first Christmas where she was starting to understand the entire thing about presents and such.  I had to admit, Gigi was curious about the boxes with wrapping paper under the tree, but she had not figured it out yet.  Then again, Ibie was a few months shy of being a year older.

There was a knock at my back door.  Pauline had come over with her daughter Baffy, hearing through a strange grapevine that we were both here, that is Callie and me, and we had been abandoned.  I say “strange grapevine” in that the frost on the grass was still glistening.  Baffy and Ibie are best friends.

After Pauline came in and refused any breakfast, she said, “Pink and a couple of pink buses are about to pull into your cul-de-sac.  She heard about the homicide detectives being out and about in Tracy.  She is gathering a subset of the Mommie’s club.  We are going by the church to see the live Nativity scene.  Better go now if we get a lot more snow.  Then we’ll go back to Lily the Pink for a little party.”

I told them that I needed to change, but I would be fast.

When we arrived at the church, Tuesday and her four children were already there.  Then, I saw why Pink wanted us there.  The little baby, wrapped in swaddling cloth, was Stormie Yeggs, my only granddaughter.  Jemima gave birth to her a month early, but she was barely in the acceptable range of weight at birth to not be considered premature.  I thought it was a bold move with the changing weather, but Rev C.S.L. had backups.  Besides, once everyone was in place for a little while and the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh were offered and accepted, the choir and the angels would sing a song.  Then everyone would go inside and have some warm liquid refreshment.  Then, with a few changes in the cast, they would do it at the top of each hour all morning.

The abbreviated Mommie’s club gathered in the church fellowship hall at one table for hot chocolate.  In a couple of minutes, the Joseph and Mary from the Nativity scene came to our table.  With my focus on the beautiful woman playing Mary, my daughter-in-law, Jemima, and the beautiful child she was holding.  Hey!  I am not prejudiced at all, but the mommy and her daughter were beautiful.  No one in the crowd needed to know the first baby Jesus was a girl.  With all the swaddling cloth, how could you tell?

But we were surprised, underneath the robes and the beard was Joseph Jones.  He complained of being typecast.  Joseph playing Joseph?  Why couldn’t he be a shepherd or one of the magi?

Three angels came over to greet us: Michael Rowe Casey, Menzie MacDougall and Arabella Dalton.  Menzie shrugged off the concern that Lauren and Sammie were having Christmas without her.  Samuel Farquharson rode his bike over early to give her a blessing before she left, and they opened presents really early.  Momma Missy and Samuel could handle the little ones.  The three angels were going to be in their positions all morning.  At least they had about fifteen minutes to warm up each hour.  Joseph had the next shift with his wife Mary playing Mary.  Rev C.S.L. had a sense of humor with his casting.  Karl Kaiser would be the next “Jesus” although Jim and Stasya usually split their time between the Latvian Orthodox church and the Lutheran church, both in the Latvian community.  But Jemima was hoping she could thumb a ride home.  Mary Sheltie Jones had her video cameras set to record the Nativity scene.  They would have a little documentary information on a reality show episode and then have the entire 45-minute program.

Mary S. Jones came by to greet us.  She would do her hour as Mary, mother of Jesus, and then she had to do a news report on something else.  She did not say what that was.

But then, the buses were loaded, and strangely, as we drove off, other pink vehicles took their place. Many people at Lily the Pink had love for the chaplain and his wife.  They wanted to watch them act their parts as a different Mary and Joseph.

When we got back to Lily the Pink, we sat in the dining area and conference center.  Everything was shut down, even the fermentation vats.  Jim Kaiser, his crew, and their contractors would be cleaning everything, inspecting all the pressure vessels, and making repairs if needed, scheduling the next outage if things could wait.  But that gave all the operations personnel a couple of weeks off.  And before they all left their assigned station on the day before Christmas Eve, Pink Lady handed each employee a candy cane, her long-established tradition.  She told Gwen that Gwen was president, and she was CEO, but this job was hers until she could not do it anymore.  And she greeted each person by name and gave each a hug.

So, on this day, since most of Pink Lady’s workers were also her tenants, they roamed in and out of the conference center.  It became where they exchanged presents with their crew mates.  Besides, they knew something that Callie and I did not know.

But then, I noticed Margie, Marguerite Justice, the girl who had boldly claimed would one day marry my son, Blaise.  She was in the corner, and she was not happy.  I walked over.

I sat next to her but stared at the Christmas tree at the far end of the room, ignoring the one next to me.  “Margie, why are you so blue?”

Margie sniffled, “I was trying to smile, but it doesn’t work.  I got a text from Blaise that said that he’d be tied up most of the day.  He’d have to get with me tomorrow to exchange gifts.  I screwed up two weeks ago, Dr. Yeggs.  Now, my Mom, who is ready to kill me by just looking at me, dropped me off for therapy.  Pastor Joseph isn’t here.  I can’t find Pink Lady, and I might have to cover all the old ground with her, and she scares me.  She works with former prostitutes.  I just acted like one when I wasn’t thinking.”

I sighed, “Let me think.  The old ground you need to cover?  You were being rewarded by some bad people.  They knew once you had done bad things with them watching, they would have control over you.  Regardless of what you did physically while you decided that the activity was wrong is immaterial.  As you fought the temptation to move from holding what was in your hands to doing something about it, the idea popped into your head that you wanted to do those bad things with Blaise first.  Hmm.  You wanted to marry Blaise, but you thought of doing it with Blaise first.  Not your one and only.  And the thought that kept repeating in your mind was to get that first with Blaise out of the way so this crazy roller coaster inside your head would stop and you could get off.  You could have seen that the girls who tempted you were bad and the activity, in that setting, was bad.  And God would not like you doing that until you were married.  At that point, God would love for you to do it.  So, the more you played a game with everyone else, saying that you were okay, and the incident was behind you, you were biding your time until the opportunity arose.”

Margie put her head in her hands and began to cry.  “Yes, ma’am.  But has Joseph shared that with you?”

I gently took a finger and lifted her chin.  “I was there when you told us what had happened.  One of my doctorates is in Psychology.  Since your intended husband is my younger son, I have had a vested interest for nearly two years in keeping an eye on you.  And Blaise.  I prayed it would never happen, and I am glad Blaise stopped short of completing what the two of you started.  But I was in your place decades before.  I am sure you have heard the story of how I had been convinced by some bad girls that I was the only virgin left in my senior class.  I stripped at the grassy knoll park and begged all the drunks on the park benches to take me.  I was unsuccessful in losing my virginity because God put two barriers in my path.  One was that every drunk was too drunk, even with me begging them.  And the other is that a young patrolman heard of the disturbance in the park.  He came up from behind me and wrapped me in a blanket and a bearhug.  When the fight was out of me, due to his wonderful bearhugs, police officer Deviled Yeggs drove me home.  My father was willing to pay him for the inconvenience, but Dev said that he would keep the incident off the books, if I had a date with him.  When we got serious, my father insisted that we could not marry unless Dev became serious about higher education.  With both of us taking college classes, mostly at opposite ends of T.R.U.S.T., my father finally let us get married.  And along the way, I stripped several times, either stripped naked or topless, even just before he proposed, but he kept giving me bearhugs.  Once I was calmed down, he handed me clothing to put back on.  Margie, you have a lifetime ahead of you.  You have such high hopes and plans.  I wanted to be a pro soccer player.  And I think I was good enough, but when I was recovering from my first ever injury, I found my love for therapy.  And then Easter gave me another interruption.  Please, Margie, do not rush this whole growing up thing.  It is more than just ‘God does not like that.’  It’s you need to love Blaise with every fiber in your body without that physical activity.  And he needs to love you the same way.  Mutual respect and commitment to a monogamous relationship will keep your relationship going.  Understand?”

Margie sniffled, but I think this smile was a real one.  “Thank you.  Do you think you could sign off on my therapy so that my parents will be willing to come pick me up?  I don’t know when Pastor Joseph will be back.”

I laughed, “He is doing his volunteer work as Joseph, a carpenter from Nazareth.  He might get here any minute, but he is probably taking the next bus back here.  Hang around and watch everyone exchange presents.  You will get your turn soon.”

As if on cue, Emmett and Sarah approached and handed Margie a gift.  Margie grumbled that she did not expect anything and thus had no gift in return.  Sarah just shrugged.  Margie was a member of the Sunday School class that was now in Pink Lady’s office, and Emmett had told Sarah that Margie was feeling blue.  Sarah wanted to share her craft work.  It was a teddy bear that had been made by felting and using llama wool.  If you ignore the loss of some profits, it didn’t cost them anything, and Sarah would have made it for someone else anyway.  Sarah didn’t talk much, hardly any at all, but she spoke volumes.

Callie walked over and sat down next to me.  “So, Ibie is off with her friends, playing, having a blast, acting like I have already left on my trip to the Everglades.  And I haven’t heard from Poached since three this morning.  It must be some terrible homicide.  When he is working strange shifts, he usually has lulls in the investigation where he can text.  Nope!  Nothing!  I was starting to wonder if our marriage would last.  The girls he had slept with in high school would meet us everywhere we went.  They would remind him of what they had done together.  I felt cheap.  I was the one who got the prize, but I was just the one of many.  Po has not cheated on me, but I felt small, a little fish in a big pond.  And now, do I have to suffer the fear of becoming a police widow?  Po and I will be doing a lot of talking on this trip.  Three years ago, we just had a lot of fun down there, other than the serious data that I collected with his help.”

I leaned back.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Margie, hugging her teddy bear, the tears still streaming, and she was saying to herself, “Blaise, I will be your one and only.  I do not want to be a little fish in a big pond, and I do not want that for you.”

I said to Callie, “You and Poached need to work things out.  I have been on a slow burn all morning.  Yes, the camaraderie with the Mommie’s club has been wonderful.  The live nativity scene, with some of Michael’s goats and Arabella’s llamas and a few other animals, was wonderful.  But each time there was a lull as you mentioned about the homicide investigation, I was thinking about having a homicide of my own.  I was feeling sorry for myself, but I knew who I married.  And this, unfortunately, goes with the territory.”

Suddenly, the television screens around the room were turned on.  Mary Sheltie Jones was on every screen, in a fancy Christmas outfit and perfect hair, unlike how she looked just a couple of hours before.

“This is Mary Sheltie Jones, known to many of you as B.B., short for Bossy Boss on the Turtle Team.  The weather report in the big city of Tracy is easy.  The temperatures are dropping, and it is snowing.  We might get an inch and a half.  But I am not here to report on the weather.  A police lieutenant has organized several charities in town to reach people with whom they have a hard time connecting.  Here is Minnie Others, women’s head coach from Central Baptist to explain.

Minnie Others appeared on screen with a flurry of activity behind her.  “Central Baptist is sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention and an agreement with the Baptist churches in the area.  They called me to ask for volunteers to collect food, clothing, and toiletries from all the local churches.  I texted the players for my volleyball, basketball, and softball teams, and I was surprised that so many were available, this being Christmas day.  Operation Warm Up got in touch with us to donate coats.  But the last-minute mission started at the detective precinct for the police department.  They got the auxiliary for both fire and police spouses involved.  They have a very popular calendar to support a charity for the families of victims and the families of people in prison.  But they had excess in calendar sales and random donations.  That got a friend of mine, who is a lieutenant in the precinct, thinking about the homeless that prefer to stay outdoors instead of going to the shelter.  This group of people move from one place to another to avoid the police, but the mission downtown has people that keep up with their location.  All these charities are coming together to help these people: Food, Clothing, Toiletries, and a new suitcase to keep their stuff in.  I am working with the canned goods along with a few of my athletes.”

B.B. asked, “And what motivated you to volunteer?”

Minnie blushed, “I’m the girl’s head coach at Central Baptist, but when I heard the police and fire auxiliary was also involved, I had to be here.  I am betrothed to the desk sergeant where this mission idea got started.  I will be a member of the auxiliary in a few months.”

B.B. narrated as the cameras panned over young girls taking cases of canned goods and boxes of dry goods.  “The day started with relocating some portable cooking equipment to fry bacon, scrambled eggs, and cook pancakes.  With donated biscuits from a few bakeries, they made breakfast sandwiches for the homeless people at their location, so they did not have to relocate.  Then as people gathered around folding tables to eat, volunteers went to each table to talk to them, see if they had any needs that could be met, and get clothing sizes.”

Blaise Yeggs appeared on the screen.  “I maintain the inventory of socks and underwear.  We have donations to cover most of the sizes.  And I will keep track of the unopened packages.  I have some of Minnie Others’ athletes putting the underwear and socks into the suitcase zippered pockets.”

Polly Pulice appeared on the screen. “I am receiving and sorting all the donated coats and comparing our inventory with the needs.  The athletes will be checking for a fit and then the coat will be placed with the suitcase, kind of wrapped around it.”

Gisele appeared on the screen. “Al and I are organizing the food that has been provided by some of the grocery stores, but mostly from food banks across the big city of Tracy.  We have considered their limited resources in cooking the food in our selections.  Canned goods take up less space, but they add weight.  We do not want their packages to be hard to handle.  But with them having a big meal this morning, they will have enough additional food for a couple of weeks.  And when they are done, they will have a suitcase to keep their stuff safe.  Captain Al Hart, my husband, is working on a means of them securing their suitcases, but that is a tricky situation that is still in the works.”

Sophia Yeggs appeared on the screen.  Gigi screamed, “Soapy!”  Sophia said, “And I have the toiletries.  We have fashioned a plastic bag that attaches to the suitcase handle to hold four rolls of toilet paper.  Then, the toothpaste, toothbrush, shaving gear (gender specific), shampoo, conditioner, and soap all fit in the zippered pockets of the suitcase that Blaise is not using for the underwear and socks.”

B.B. again provided voice over while the cameras showed the homeless people receiving their gift, trying on their coat, and hugging the volunteers.  “Many of these people do not like the crowds, but it must be the special atmosphere of the Christmas Season.  Everyone is having a good time.  But who dreamed up this entire thing?  He did not want to be on camera.  He is the Lieutenant in charge of Homicide in the big city of Tracy.  He sees people at the worst of times, whether they have lost a family member, they are a witness, or they fear more violence in their community.  He had a talk with his sister-in-law recently who works with the homeless all the time, and he felt God leading him to show these disenfranchised of our community that the police and fire departments see them as people instead of seeing them as a threat to the neighborhood.”

Pink Lady was nearby.  I heard her gasp.

B.B. continued, “But I did get him to almost appear on camera.”

The camera was pointed at several grills.  I could recognize the backside of my husband, Jim Wednesday and Poached Yeggs, the homicide trio.  The camera occasionally showed them cooking eggs, frying bacon, or making pancakes.

Here is the conversation in dialogue form.  Their names were not displayed nor were their faces shown, but I knew who said what.

Rookie Ruthie Toody:  Oo!  Oo! Here’s another batch of batter, Lieutenant.  I’m taking a break.  My arms are tired.
Deviled: Take a break, Ruthie.  This batch will last me a while and the line is slowing down a bit.  Some of these people were hungry, and now that we are cooking sausage and small pancakes to make sandwiches, the batter lasts a little longer.
B.B.:  Lieutenant, I have interviewed a lot of the volunteers and talked to a lot of your customers away from camera.  How many pancakes have you made this morning?
Deviled: I have not been counting, but Ruthie said over a thousand before we swapped to the sandwich sized pancake.  We ran out of biscuits.  Our volunteers needed to eat, and we had more people in this settlement than the mission thought.
Poached: I fried twenty pounds of bacon before one of our runners came back with sausage for the pancake sandwiches.  I think most of them are putting the sandwiches in their new coat pockets for lunch later.  For today, who needs a refrigerator with the snow coming down?  It’s all good.  These people are seeing the police as people as much as we are seeing them as people.  Maybe next time we want to ask a few questions about something that happened in the neighborhood, they might not hide.  But the big thing is to build trust within the neighborhood.  But even without that, these people will have a full stomach and food to last a while.
B.B.:  But once on Christmas doesn’t make much of a dent in things.
Deviled: I talked to a few of the people, mostly like you, talking while cooking.  I talked to them about the Bridge Ministry in Nashville, TN.  I told them that we could be here once a month, but we would like to be here weekly.  Candy Christmas started the ministry in Nashville, when she found her purpose in life in the people under a bridge, just like these people.  Her charity feeds them every Tuesday under the bridge and they have a worship service.  Hmmm.  Candy Christmas.  We’re starting this one on Christmas.  But these people are hungry for food, but they are hungry for answers.  We want the feed them, talk to them, and tell them about how God loves them.  That concept is rather foreign to them.  For them to hear that from a cop is other worldly.
B.B.:  I’ve heard of that ministry in Nashville.  They feed a lot of people.  Do you have the resources?
Deviled:  My wife and I are doing okay.  We have four children.  One is married and they just had a baby girl.  The other three are at home.  We can make a nice donation, but we know people who know people.  This ministry can get off the ground.
B.B.: Sergeant, you have been quiet.  I cannot believe scrambling eggs can be that absorbing.
Jim: No, I am slowing down here.  Some people don’t like egg in their pancake and sausage sandwiches.  Imagine that!  They don’t know what they are missing, but all kidding aside, I am standing here, pondering.  Read your Bible.  Mary, the mother of Jesus, did a lot of pondering.  Just seven years ago, I was a detective, and the Lieutenant here was the sergeant.  We didn’t have a boss, a lieutenant, but we closed a lot of homicide cases.  The Lieutenant, who was a sergeant then, had his family, but I was holding out for this dream girl.  Then I realized that my long-time girlfriend was my dream girl, and when she proposed to me, she offered that we adopt three children.  Their mother, selling her body, living on the streets, like a lot of these people here, had three children all less than two-years-old.  She was murdered and my girlfriend at the time solved the murder, working as a file clerk in Stout County at the sheriff’s office.  She told child services to not let those three children go.  She would convince me to marry her and then be back for the children.  We have added another child of our own with another on the way, and my wife has moved from a clerk to a detective and now undersheriff of detectives.  And I have moved up to the detective sergeant shield.  But, with one bit of misfortune or another, we could be one of these people here.  Seven years ago, I had never met Jesus and did not think I needed Him.  Now, I have Jesus in my heart.  You know, B.B., that’s a lot to ponder.
B.B.:  And folks, we did not script this, but that’s a great way to end it.  We will soon set up a link, once the Lieutenant has figured out what this ministry will be called, and then we can link our Storm Chasing Channel to their ministry’s website.  This is Mary Sheltie Jones wishing you a very Merry Christmas.

I looked at the ceiling and prayed, “Lord, I was ready to shoot him when he left at three a.m. and hardly said ‘Good-bye.’  I resolved that you put us together and for better or worse, we have to make it work.  But even though I have no idea how this ministry is going to get off the ground, but I have to say one thing.  Oh, how I love that man.”

“You love what man?” a familiar voice said from the other side of the Christmas tree that I sat beside.

I jumped out of my skin in shock.  “But I just saw you on television, making pancakes!”

Dev shrugged, “Mary Sheltie Jones did all the interviews fairly early after the sun came up.  Then with the lighting just right, thus our less endearing backsides, she did our interview as she was piecing the other pieces together.  Merry Christmas, Glyce.  I love you, too.”

He gave me the best bearhug ever.  Regardless of what awaited me under the tree, having him here and having a big bearhug was my best present of the day.

Credits

This story came to mind in the summer on days when the temperature was in the 80s and 90s, no snow in sight.  I first thought of the early morning phone call to give honor to those hardworking “essential” workers.  My wife spent plenty of our early holidays as a married couple on call.  Sometimes the phone does not ring, but other times, we never saw each other all day.  When the need arises, you must answer the call.  Oddly, NATO had a way of messing with American holidays, but never on Christmas while I was there.  But then, as I started writing, I thought of the twist.  Now, with Pink Lady and Amy G. Dala both being willing to help financially, who can organize and manage a ministry of this size?  Oh, well, I have written myself into tighter corners.

Here is White Christmas.  Since Glyce Yeggs mentioned White Christmas, I thought of the Drifters version.  If you think this is the Temptations version, the Temptations were not formed as a group until 16 years after the Drifters recorded the song.

Here is Porky Pig’s Blue Christmas.  Since Glyce Yeggs mentioned Blue Christmas, I thought of a humorous version.

Here is a video of Mark Lowry and Andrew Greer interviewing Candy Christmas.  If you have fifty minutes to learn about the Bridge Ministry in Nashville, TN, please watch.  The first television show episode is the first thirty minutes.  And if you are depressed, here is a woman who came out the other side.

And echoing what Mary Sheltie Jones said:

MERRY CHRISTMAS