The Christmas Epidemic

Dear readers, I enjoyed a nice vacation over Thanksgiving and now, along with all of you, am in the throes of Christmas preparations with sewing to do, candies to make and lots of errands. For the next few days I will share a story with you in the hopes it will help you slow down enough to have a happy season!

Part I (of IV)

Marcella first noticed something different when she didn’t feel her usual thrill at the first sight of Christmas decorations at the mall. Not only was she missing her usual thrill, but she felt annoyed. For her, that feeling had never been associated with Christmas, which surprised her. She dismissed it as a natural result of the mall breaking the unwritten rule of holiday décor that prohibited the display of decorations for holidays still two celebrations away. It was the middle of October.
Marcella had Christmas all figured out, she was the quintessential expert. She had it so figured out that she had earned such nicknames as “The Queen of Christmas” and “Holiday Guru”. It wasn’t just that she loved Christmas more than anyone else, it was that she had it down to a science. She knew exactly what to do when, each day of December, to make the celebration perfect. And it had been perfect the last twenty years. Her detailed (and quite lengthy) schedule fit in everything anyone could possibly want in a Christmas season, from caroling to gingerbread houses, fruitcake to hand-made gifts. Her schedule reflected the best streets in which neighborhoods to see the Christmas decorations. She knew which sales would be when and the regular Salvation Army bell-ringers knew her by name.
By Thanksgiving Marcella was usually well-doused in Christmas spirit, but not a drop had landed on her this year. She dismissed it as missing her oldest, Jack, who was serving a mission in Panama. It was his first holiday season away. She reassured herself, “I’ll be all right with that first snowfall and carol on the radio.” Snow came, it was depressing. “What kind of name is Wenceslas, anyway?” she caught herself muttering to the radio.
She posted her laminated copies of the schedule on the back of every door in the house; she found it helpful for the family to know what she was up to (they found it helpful to know when to stay clear of her). “I must be coming down with something,” she thought to herself as she struggled for energy for the morning’s errands. Visiting teaching was that afternoon, hers were coming at one, she’d meet her partner and visit their four sisters after that. She glanced at the message, “Finding Peace Through Christ”. Peace, she thought, as she grabbed the keys and dropped for quarters in her pocket for the bell-ringer outside of Wal-mart. But as she walked toward the entrance, the sound of that blasted bell, which always before had been music to her ears, made something snap within her. She froze for a moment as sheer dread welled up inside and overcame her. Then she heard herself say out loud, “I can’t do it.” She went home to bed. She didn’t sleep, but thought, a lot, about a lot of things. She read the visiting teaching message again. She studied the scriptures, she read the rest of the Ensign.
Her husband, Jeff, came home for lunch expecting the smell of gingerbread. He glanced at the schedule, yes, he should be smelling gingerbread. He found Marcella in bed and ran a hot bath for her, then ventured to ask the question troubling his mind, “Marcy, honey, what about your schedule?”
“I just can’t do it,” she explained matter-of-factly. “I can’t explain it, I just can’t do it.”
“That’s OK,” he reassured her.
Visiting teachers found her in her robe. It was very uncharacteristic of Marcella to be sick, especially during the holidays. Their first question was, “What about your schedule?” The whole ward knew about it, half of them used her version of it or one similar. She had taught a mini-class on it at July enrichment meeting every other year for the past ten years. She called it “Countdown to a Perfect Christmas”. Marcella explained to the visiting teachers what happened, as best as she understood it herself. They volunteered to do her visiting teaching for her that afternoon. Word of Marcella’s “condition” spread quickly, by evening half the ward knew that Marcella Simmons was sick, with something… Several others were beginning to feel symptoms, too.
The three girls and Jacob were surprised to find their mother in her robe when they got home from school. They were surprised nothing was ready for the “scheduled” Family Home Evening activity of making gingerbread houses. No one said anything about it. Instead, after supper Marcella shared with the family the visiting teaching message on peace and they gathered around the piano to sing carols, even though it wasn’t scheduled until the following week. She’ll snap out of it soon, they all thought.