I was running around town the other day doing some Christmas shopping and dropped into the Aitkens Pewter Studio Store, the closest thing I could find in Fredericton to Santa’s workshop.
The big box stores have their place, but they stress me out. And as far as the malls go, forget it. They’re way too stressful. Just trying to find a parking spot drives me crazy. Smaller, more intimate shopping experiences where you have time to think and talk to other shoppers in the same frame of mind are my preference. Not only that, but the Christmas music playing in the background tends to be better. Sometimes they even have complimentary holiday treats. Nice!
In the showroom, just a few feet away from where the Aitkens Pewter elves were working hard to meet their Christmas deadlines, I noticed a pewter ornament that stopped me in my tracks. Even from a few feet away, the romantic winter scene depicting a couple in a one-horse sleigh reached out to me.
“Hey, you,” the ornament called out to my imagination. “Yes, you, looking at the pewter wine goblets. Remember this long-ago moment in time when you and your loved one took that moonlight sleigh ride?”
“Whose woods these are I think I know. / His house is in the village though; / He will not see me stopping here / To watch his woods fill up with snow.”
Not only do I remember that evening, my imagination answered; I remember thinking about the Robert Frost poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening as we dashed through the snow, stopping every once in a while to let the horse rest.
“My little horse must think it queer / To stop without a farmhouse near / Between the woods and frozen lake / The darkest evening of the year.”
Bundled up and snuggled together, we didn’t talk much during our sleigh ride. As I recall, the experience was too big for words. When it comes to romance, sometimes it’s enough to let the silence speak.
I remember the sound of the sleigh’s steel runners slicing through the snow and what the moon looked like as the breath from the horse’s nostrils mixed with the cold night air. Looking up at the stars, I couldn’t help but wonder if even the horse picked up on the transcendent beauty surrounding us. Horses are smart, and as I would learn years later from Ron Turcotte, the famous New Brunswick jockey who rode the 1973 Triple Crown winner, Secretariat, to victory, they have an almost sixth sense about them.
“He gives his harness bells a shake / To ask if there is some mistake. / The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake.”
Until the day I noticed that Christmas ornament, it had been years since I thought about that sleigh ride. It’s funny how memories, even significant moments in our lives, can slip away, sometimes even disappearing entirely.
Rushing around, as our fast-paced, urban lifestyle so often demands, especially during the holiday season, can wear us down. While presents and parties are great — and they are — Christmas is about being kind to ourselves and giving ourselves and others the gift of stories, stories that help us feel the joy, happiness and beauty of life.
Driving home past the mall after saying goodbye to the elves in the Aitkens Pewter workshop, I thought about how great that ornament will look on my tree. I’m glad it called out to me. I’m glad I heard it.
Next year, maybe I’ll go back for those pewter wine goblets.
