The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas Read Online Free

hung from the tree and we’d all exclaimed (as usual) that it was the most beautiful tree ever, John ran around and turned out all the other lights so that the Christmas tree shone alone in the darkness. We all stood around it, very still, admiring it, and I was peaceful and happy. For a moment I forgot about being the angel. I even forgot about the baby.
    On the twenty-third day of December, when I
went to the church for dress rehearsal, it finally began to snow. Everybody began to clap and shout with glee, and we kept running to the doors to look at the great feather flakes fluttering from a soft, fluffy sky. Finally the director got cross at us and ordered everyone inside, and Mr. Irving made a big discord on the organ.
    In the Sunday school rooms several mothers helped us get into costume. I was dressed early, and Mrs. Irving, who dressed me, said, “Vicky dear, if you stand around here in this mob, your wings are going to get crushed. Go sit quietly in the back of the church until we’re ready to start the run-through.”
    I went, holding my wings carefully, through the big doors and halfway down the nave. The church was transformed with pine boughs and candles. The candles wouldn’t be lit until just before the Christmas Eve service, but there was a spotlight shining on the manger. The girl who played Mary came and stood beside me, a high school senior and very, very grown up. She wore a pale blue gown and a deep blue robe. She dropped one hand lightly on my shoulder.
    â€œSome of us thought it was funny, such a little kid
being chosen for the angel, and at first we thought you were going to be awful and ruin everything. But Mr. Quinn promised us you wouldn’t, and now I think you’re going to be the best thing in the Pageant, I honestly do.” Then she went and sat by the manger. She sat very still, her head bowed. She didn’t seem like a high school senior anymore. She seemed to belong in Bethlehem. Protecting my wings, I sat down in one of the pews. And for a while, I, too, seemed to be in Bethlehem.
    Then the director called out time for the run-through to begin, and everything was hustle and bustle again. The choir in their red cassocks and white surplices lined up for the processional. I was shown into the corner behind the organ, from where I was to make my first entrance.
    Everything went smoothly. I even managed to walk as though I had Shu to Sub on my head. My arms felt like curves instead of angles. My words were as bell-like as Mother had been able to make them. At the final tableau I stood by the manger, and I felt shining with joy.

    After the choir had recessed and the spotlight had faded on the nativity scene, the director and Mr. Irving congratulated everybody. “It was beautiful, just beautiful!” The mothers who had helped with the costumes and had stayed to watch echoed, “Beautiful! Beautiful!” Except for the fathers, almost everybody who was going to be at church on Christmas Eve was already there.
    The director gave me a big smile. “Vicky, you were just perfect. Don’t change one single thing. Tomorrow evening for the performance do it just exactly the way you did today.”
    Daddy picked John and me up on his way home from the office. It was still snowing, great, heavy flakes. The ground was already white. Daddy said, “I’m glad I got those new snow tires.”
    John said, “You see, Daddy, we are going to have a white Christmas after all.”
    When we woke up on Christmas Eve morning we ran to the windows. Not only was the ground white, but we couldn’t even see the road. Mother said the
snow plow went through at five o’clock so the farmers could get the milk out, and Daddy had followed the milk trucks, but the road had already filled in again.
    We ate breakfast quickly, put on snow suits, and ran out to play. The snow was soft and sticky, the very best kind for making snowmen and building forts. We spent the