Christmas Is My Church

Christmas Eve at the brewery was never busy.

Not really.

Busy is the wrong word.

Busy belongs to Saturdays.

Football games.

River cleanup lunches.

Summer nights when the river is full and people.

Christmas Eve was different.

Christmas Eve was occupied.

There were people in the room.

Just not the kind who were in a hurry to get anywhere else.

Outside the windows Christmas was doing its best.

The decorations were lit.

The wreaths were hanging.

The speakers were playing Johnny Mathis.

The parking lot looked like a wet sock.

The only snow left in town was hiding in the shadows behind buildings like it owed somebody money.

Ohio only snows when you don’t want it to.

On Christmas Eve it gives you slush.

Earlier that afternoon Sue had stopped in with jams and dried herbs.

She didn’t stay.

Sue never needed to stay long to make a place feel better.

She came in carrying a box with both hands, set it on the bar, wished everyone Merry Christmas, refused a beer, accepted a hug, and left before anyone could properly thank her.

That was very Sue.

Some people bring gifts because the calendar tells them to.

Sue brought gifts because she had been thinking about you when you weren’t around.

By six o’clock the jars were lined up behind the bar.

Strawberry rhubarb.

Blackberry.

Apple butter.

Pepper jelly.

Little bundles of thyme and rosemary tied with string.

The room smelled like beef, cinnamon, wet coats, citrus peel, and all the herbs Sue had dried that made everything smell like somebody loved you enough to plan ahead.

Rick sat at the end of the bar wearing a flannel shirt with a hole in the elbow.

He had a beer in front of him and a look on his face like Christmas had personally offended him.

Eli was behind the bar with an ugly Christmas sweater on.

Working.

Actually working.

Not looking at the door.

Not pretending not to look at the door.

Not writing.

Not falling in love.

Just working.

A few regulars sat scattered around the room.

Carl was there because his kids were with their mother until morning.

A nurse named Amanda came in after her shift still wearing scrubs and looking like she’d seen enough of humanity for one day but was willing to try again after one beer.

A retired lineman sat in the corner eating soup and watching A Christmas Story with the sound off.

Two brothers who hadn’t spoken much since their mother died shared a pizza and argued quietly about whether Die Hard counted.

It did.

Obviously.

Nobody in the room belonged there.

Which is probably why they all did.

I used to think church was a building.

Then I got older and thought maybe it was a story people told themselves because the world was too heavy to carry without somewhere to set it down.

Then I got older again and decided I didn’t know enough to decide anything.

That was the most honest stage so far.

But if church was a place where people gathered against the dark, then maybe this counted.

A little.

Not officially.

No stained glass.

No choir.

No robes.

No incense.

Just taps.

Old wood.

Wet boots.

Soup.

Beer.

Jars of jam.

And people with nowhere better to be.

Rick looked at the television.

“Die Hard is not a Christmas movie.”

The room turned on him immediately.

“You better be careful,” Eli said.

Rick took a drink.

“Christmas movies require ghosts or singing.”

The room laughed.

Then settled back into itself.

The best rooms know how to breathe.

They fill.

They empty.

They get loud.

They get quiet.

They hold what people bring into them.

Grief.

Joy.

Loneliness.

Hunger.

Bad weather.

Good stories.

Some nights all you can do is keep the lights on and trust that the room knows what to do.

I looked toward the barrel room.

For no reason.

Or maybe for every reason.

At first grief had been a door slamming.

Then an empty chair.

Then a silence.

Now it had become something else.

A place in the room where a story could sit.

Someone had put one of the competition photos on the wall near the hallway.

I still didn’t know who.

Patrick holding the trophy over his head.

Mouth open.

Laughing.

Alive in the only way photographs know how to keep people alive.

A customer noticed it earlier and asked who he was.

Rick answered before I could.

“Best stout in Ohio.”

“That true?”

Rick shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter.”

The customer smiled.

Rick pointed at the photo.

“But it was worth knowing.”

I didn’t say anything.

I just went back to wiping glasses.

The room got quieter around eight.

Christmas Eve has a gravity to it.

Even the people with nowhere to go eventually feel the pull of somewhere they think they should be.

Carl left first.

Then Amanda.

Then the brothers.

One at a time the room thinned.

Leaving behind half-finished beers, wet footprints, and the kind of silence that only happens after people have been kind to each other for a while.

Eli put Sue’s pepper jelly on a board with a handful of cheese and crackers.

No one ordered it.

He just made it.

Set it out at the bar.

Rick took one cracker.

Then another.

Then moved the whole board closer to him.

“Merry Christmas to me,” he said.

I laughed.

The clock above the bar said 8:37.

We were supposed to close at nine.

Which meant we would close somewhere around ten.

Maybe ten-thirty.

That was another thing bars and churches had in common.

Nobody ever left exactly when they were supposed to.

The door opened.

Cold air moved into the room.

Not dramatic.

Not cinematic.

Just cold.

Wet.

Ohio.

Daisy walked in alone.

No guitar.

No microphone.

No band.

No Ben.

Just Daisy.

Hair damp because Ohio is.

Coat buttoned wrong.

Cheeks red from the cold.

For a second nobody said anything.

Not because she was famous.

She wasn’t.

Not because everyone had been waiting.

They hadn’t.

But the room changed.

Just slightly.

Like someone had opened a window and let tomorrow in.

She was the first thing all night that reminded anyone it was Christmas.

And that good things still happen.

I noticed her first.

Eli didn’t.

He was rinsing glasses.

Talking to Rick.

Laughing at something stupid.

Living inside his own life for once instead of watching the door for someone else’s entrance.

Daisy looked around the room.

Then smiled.

“Are you still open?”

“No,” Rick said.

“Yes,” Eli said at the same time.

Daisy laughed.

“Which is it?”

Rick pointed at Eli.

“He works here. I’m just here to spread Christmas cheer.”

Eli was paying attention now.

He was stopped.

But not the way he used to stop.

Not like a man being struck by lightning.

More like someone noticing weather.

Important.

Beautiful.

Temporary.

He smiled.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

That was it.

He finally wasn’t performing.

Daisy liked that.

She was always performing.

No one in her line of work needs more of that.

No violin.

No prophecy.

No universe leaning in to listen.

Just hey.

“What are you drinking?” Eli asked.

Daisy looked at the chalkboard.

“What’s new?”

He reached into the cooler and pulled out one of the winter ales.

The label was simple.

Cream paper.

Black ink.

A small drawing of the river.

And beneath it, the words Patrick had chosen before any of us understood why.

A lot has changed
but not much that matters.

Eli set it on the bar.

“This one’s good.”

Daisy picked it up.

Turned the bottle.

Read the label.

Then read it again.

The room moved around her.

Rick eating crackers.

Johnny Mathis singing softly.

The TV glowing blue in the corner.

Christmas slush shining in the parking lot.

Daisy looked up.

“Who wrote this?”

Eli wiped his hands on a towel.

For once he didn’t rush to fill the silence.

I watched him decide what kind of answer to give.

That was new too.

“I wrote some of it,” he said.

Daisy looked back at the bottle.

Then at him.

Something changed in her face.

Not love.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

Recognition.

That’s rarer.

A bartender is a craftsman.

An artist is something else.

For a long time Daisy had only seen Eli moving through work.

Pouring beers.

Washing glasses.

Taking orders.

Making change.

Tonight she saw words he had made sitting in her hand.

Out in the world.

Not hidden in a notebook.

Not tucked under the bar.

Not waiting to be found.

There.

Printed.

Real.

She smiled.

“That’s beautiful.”

Eli shrugged.

But poorly.

He looked proud.

And embarrassed.

And young.

And not as young as he used to.

“Thanks.”

I poured the beer.

Daisy took the glass.

Rick lifted his beer.

“Merry Christmas.”

The three of them clinked glasses.

So did I.

No one said anything important after that.

Which felt right.

Daisy stayed for one beer.

Maybe two.

I don’t remember.

I remember she laughed.

I remember Eli didn’t try too hard.

I remember Rick told her Santa could not be trusted because no honest man needs that many aliases.

I remember Sue’s rosemary on my fingers.

I remember Patrick’s picture on the wall.

I remember the lights reflecting in the wet parking lot.

I remember thinking that maybe Christmas wasn’t something that arrived.

It was something people made.

A little at a time.

With whatever pieces of themselves they could still afford to give away.

Near closing, Daisy stood and buttoned her coat.

Correctly this time.

“See you around?” she said.

Eli smiled.

“Probably.”

She nodded.

Then she left.

The cold came in.

Then the door shut.

And that was all.

No ending.

No beginning.

Just a door closing softly on Christmas Eve.

Leaving the possibility of tomorrow behind like warmth.

Eli watched the door for a second.

Then he picked up the empty glasses and carried them to the sink.

I looked at him.

Then at the bottle on the bar.

Then at Patrick’s picture.

Then at the room.

The room wasn’t full.

It was complete.

I had spent years thinking I was building a brewery.

A business.

A place.

Maybe I was.

But standing there on Christmas Eve, with Johnny Mathis singing to no one in particular and the parking lot dissolving into slush, it felt like I had accidentally built a church of the earth.

Not one with crystal chandeliers.

Not the one imagined by lonely young men sitting beside Christmas trees and wondering about faraway things.

Something smaller.
Stranger.
Better.

A room where people came when the world got too dark.

A room where no one had to explain why they were there.

A room where the dead could still be mentioned.

Where the lonely could be fed.

Where the young could become themselves.

Where old words could shine through the dust.

Where, for a little while, everything that was shared was multiplied.

Rick put on his coat.

“Well,” he said.

“Merry Christmas, you animals.”

“Merry Christmas, Rick.”

He pointed toward the bottle Daisy had left on the bar.

“Good label.”

Then he left before anyone could ask him to explain.

Eli finished washing glasses.

I turned off the television.

The room went quiet.

Not empty.

Complete.

There is a difference.

— from The Last Saturday, “Christmas Is My Church”