Christmas Memory

Rena Parker

On occasion we do have a white Christmas in Oklahoma City. It happens every 10 years or so. I guess that is why we tend to remember most of them. I have lived in Oklahoma City all of my life and have learned to savor those Christmas’. About a block from our house lived a convent of cloistered nuns. I had come into contact with them as they did monogramming and did the work for a store that I managed at the time. I had never actually had a face to face meeting with the nuns as I would enter on the back porch and drop off the day’s monogramming order and pick up what had been done. I will always remember the one and only time I was face to face with the telephone voice I had come to know so well.

One memorably snowy Christmas week we had the most snow we had had in my memory and the yards were piled high with fluff. The air was crisp and the sun was bright. I received a call from Sister Elizabeth the Sunday morning before Christmas. She and the other nuns were going to service and she wanted to stop by on their way to bring me a present. I stood at the door of my home looking out at the snow and waiting for her arrival.

Up drove a small Volkswagen Beetle with 5 nuns poured inside. Sister Elizabeth stepped out in her black robes and walked up to the porch. I watched her walk in the snow, black billowing around her, her habit edged in the bright red of her order. She was balanced against the unsoiled snow around her. I could barely speak as she walked up to the porch and handed me a wonderful loaf of Christmas bread. I thanked her profusely and wished her a Merry Christmas as she walked down the porch steps. I don’t remember what her face looked like, but will always remember the day I was delivered a present by a nun on the finest Christmas morning we have ever had.