White Christmas

The wife complained every year about not having a white Christmas. She kept saying the shopping fever and the holiday rush kill the spirit of joy. She wanted to see a snow-covered town and walk on crisp snow to the midnight mass on Christmas Eve.

She prayed every year to God, as she couldn't even remember when she last saw snow on the ground at this most sacred holiday of the year. Perhaps when she was a child, a long time ago.

For years and years, the holiday weather was gloomy. Clouds covered the sky; everything gray and sad.

Her husband decided to make a change. If the weather could not be snow-white, it should be warm and sunny. He reserved a Caribbean cruise at Christmas-time. The wife took the idea wholeheartedly. Maybe the white sand of a Jamaican beach would replace the ever-missing white snow of the Georgia hometown.

It was strange to see all the Christmas decorations, the lighted houses, shop windows at night with people around them in shorts, t-shirts and sandals, to see kids running by a Christmas tree in wet swimsuits, and to hear Christmas music from speakers on a beach under bright sunshine.

Still, the atmosphere was cheerfully different. At least the sky was blue and the moon was shining on the white beach at night as it would on the snow-covered lawns of her hometown.

On Christmas Eve they laid on the beach, sipping a fruity cocktail, the wife reading a newspaper. She jumped up, excited and crying, and put the newspaper under her husband's nose.

"Look!" she said in a broken voice. "We are finally having a white Christmas back home. And we missed it!"