Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2023 08:43:54 +0000
From: Jonah
Subject: Christmas in New England    Chapter 1

Christmas in New England

By Jonah

This is a work of fiction so be aware that every character herein is also
fictitious.  If you think you recognise yourself, or somebody else in here
- you don't. Some places, and some institutions in here are real, but the
people attached to those institutions in the story are not.  Most
characters are my own creations, but some are the creations of another
author.  I want to thank Jacob Lion, in the USA, for his permission to use
his characters in my stories.

This story is brought to you, at no charge, by Nifty.  Nifty does not
charge either me or you to publish this story, but if does cost money to
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Chapter 1

It might seem obvious, but it has to be said, that a city technology
college does not have the same ring to it as a "school".  For a start, it
does not have conotations of "childhood".  It almost seems to have divorced
itself from the world of education, thus allowing it to jetison its
clientelle into the worlds of commerce and industry whether they will or
no.

From early November Garret's primary school had been preparing its charges,
including our three boys, for the onset of Christmas.  At the CTC, it was
hard to divine that any such festivity existed.  Of course, as Religious
Education was one of my subjects, you might expect it to be different in my
classroom.  You would expect in vain for two reasons - firstly that I also
taught Design Tecnology, Technical Drawing, Metalwork and English Language
(I know - when am I ever supposed to get a free period?) - but also,
Religious Education doesn't work like that. My teaching also had to take
into account Judaism, Hinduism, Buddism and Islam - to name but four.  You
might even have expected that to sit ill with my own Christian faith; well
it didn't.  I found that having the courtesy to allow others their own
faith actually allowed me the confidence to have my own faith.

Christmas was coming.  In a house containing three ten-year-olds that
couldn't be allowed to go unacknowledged.  Garret, of course, was bound to
acknowledge it as his daily work began to revolve around it, but I wasn't
backward in acknowledging it for a different reason.  As a teacher who
worked in a CTC, I was painfully aware that this might be the last year in
which their schoolwork included celebrating the birth of our Lord.  I say
"might", because it was not yet certain where they might be going next
year.  There were other secondary academies in the city that were not CTCs.
A couple of them even had Church sponsorship, Could we get Lloyd and Philip
into one of those?  It was possible, but there was always a clamour for
places.  In Barry's case, we might not have a lot of say in where he went
as we were only fostering him.

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Falalalala lala la la; 'Tis the
season....sorry."

"No, it's alright.  Go on.  I know you have to practice."

"No, honestly.  I didn't realise I was doing it."

"Look Garret, from the sounds of that noise, you need to practice.  Carry
on."

I had to duck as a cushion whizzed past my head.

"Deck the halls with boughs of..."  came the junior chorus, which tailed
off in peals of laughter as three little boys thundered up the stairs.

I was at the foot of the stairs in an instant.

"Right, now that you're up there, you can stay there.  It's bedtime.  I'll
be up in five minutes."

I sat down on the settee as Garret poured two small whiskies.

"Seriously, how did the choir rehearsal go?" I inquired.

"With only a fortnight to go to the concert, I'd like to know our parts for
"Merry Christmas" better than I do.  it's complicated.  The rest is OK
though.  I'm going to try to get Daniel to concentrate on that a bit next
week.  It is our finale after all."

"Don't you have the junior choir with you this year?"

"Oh yes, we look forward to working with them."

"Well they'll join you for the finale won't they."

"Yes, I hadn't thought about that.  Perhaps we shouldn't try to upstage
them anyway.  I had an interesting talk with my father this afternoon."

"How is he?"

I hadn't spoken with old Yori Ito for a long time but I rather hoped Garret
did often.

"He's old, but still good to talk to.  He says he's feeling old."

"Well it can't be very nice for him being all on his own."

"Exactly!"

I was mystified.

"Exactly what?"

"He'd like to see his grandchildren while he's still around to do so.  I'm
sure they'd like to meet him."

"Are you serious?"

"He says he'd pay for it."

"In the New year?"

"He was thinking Christmas."

"Garret, that's a big ask.  I mean .... are we even allowed to take Barry
out of the country?"

"I don't know, but we could find out."

I looked at my partner long and hard as an inner conflict took over my
brain.  Of course, I would like to go to Ashfield again, after all this
time.  I knew that most of our old friends there were there no longer.
That was to be expected after so long, but it would be nice.  The trip
would be good for the boys, but it would decimate any plans I had been
making for Christmas.  Had I been making plans for Christmas?  I could see
Garret was looking forward to this.  Of course, much of his upbringing was
in Ashfield, and it was his father that we were talking about."

"Alright Garret.  I'll phone Linda tomorrow and find out what we'd have to
do.  Don't get your father's hopes up yet.  If it means a court order, or
something, there's no guarantee that we'd get it."

Upstairs, in the boys' room the little tykes had put themselves to bed but
didn't look remotely ready to go to sleep.  For a start, they'd put
themselves in the same bed.  I sat on the edge of their bed.

"Was "Deck the Halls" your idea?" I asked Lloyd.

"Yes, but we're not singing that in the concert," he replied."Only the Male
Voice Choir are singing that."

"So what are you singing?"

"What, besides Wee Wee Chu?"

I had to smile as I recognised the old joke that he was referring to.  It
was the story of a very junior angel on the first Christmas Morning in the
fields around Bethlehem.  The Heavenly host had turned out and a senior
angel told the boy, "Now we sing Glory to God in the Highest", but the boy
replied, "I don't want to sing that - I want to do Wee Wee Chu."  The other
older angels tried to persuade him - "But we've come here especially to
sing "Glory to God in the Highest" to these shepherds," but the boy was
adamant.  In the end they relented somewhat and said, "Alright, if we let
you do Wee Wee Chu, THEN will you sing "Glory to God in the Highest?"  The
young angel agreed to that so the shepherds were treated to the strains of
"Wee Wee Chu a Merry Christmas, Wee Wee Chu a Merry Christmas...."

"Yes, besides Wee Wee Chu.  I already know about that."

His brow creased as if in deep thought as he replied,

"Well there's "Do you hear what I hear?"  and there's "Light a candle in
your window," and "Jesus was born in a stable" and Deana is going to sing
the first verse of "Away in a manger."

"That'll be nice.  Didn't you want to do that?"

"I'm singing the first verse of Once in Royal David's City".

Suddenly I was transported back nearly twenty years to my first Christmas
with Jonah.  He had taken Peter and I to King's College, Cambridge, for
their annual service of Nine Lessons and Carols, and the American family
had come with us.  It had opened with a boy soprano singing the very verse
that Lloyd was going to perform for us.

"Lloyd's got a lovely voice," Philip informed me.

"Yes, and I love to hear him sing," I replied, "but right now, isn't it
time you boys were thinking about sleeping?"

"I'm not tired."

"I'm not either."

"You do surprise me, and I suppose the fact that you're all in the same bed
means that you'll be keeping each other awake."

"No, but it gets so cold in the night."

Well it was November, but I'm sure that, if any of them felt cold, they
would have joined Garret and I.  I kept that thought to myself.  I didn't
want it to sound like an invitation. Without another word I leaned over and
kissed Philip on his forehead.  I then turned to Lloyd and Barry and kissed
each of them in turn.

"Okay, but don't keep each other awake for too long.  Dad'll be up in about
quarter of an hour and he'll want to put that light out.  Goodnight boys.
See you in the morning."

On occasions, the boys got too excited to sleep, but that rarely happened
on school nights so they should be fine.