Joyce Trewyn had always loved the clanking sound of trains on the railroad tracks. Her father, a train conductor on the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, spread magic at Christmas.
Each holiday season, she rode the North Pole Train with visiting tourists. Even if they never really made it to the actual North Pole, she had so much fun eating cookies and drinking peppermint hot chocolate while listening to Christmas carols in her cabin that she hardly noticed they never left Pennsylvania. Her father dressed up as Santa Claus and surprised the children at the end of the ride with presents. The other staff dressed up like elves and toy soldiers. Sometimes, her mother even posed as Mrs. Claus. The train was decorated with twinkling lights and garland, and when the tourists exited, fake snow fell on them.
“Re-joice! Re-joice! Again, I say re-joice!” her father said, as he walked through the house during the Christmas season. He made a high-pitched rhythmic tone that sounded like a train whistle. Joyce looked at her father and laughed. He had a way of making her feel special.
During the holidays, he wore his conductor hat with mistletoe and hung sparkling lanterns at the windows. Every Christmas Eve, he would hang his largest lantern on their front porch next to their holly wreath. Before he ever wrapped any presents, he set up his toy train beneath the Christmas tree. Joyce always looked forward to playing with the train.
“Joyce, you can put the Christmas Railroad up yourself this year!” Mr. Trewyn said. “Did I tell you that my grandfather gave me this train? It will be yours one day. This will be practice!”
“Okay, Dad. I’m putting on my official conductor pajamas,” Joyce called from her bedroom. She felt a little bit nervous with such a large responsibility. She hoped she would do a good job without breaking any pieces. Some of them were irreplaceable. “I’ll be right there,” she said.
She walked out into the living room in her button-up pinstriped navy blue and white pajamas with red and green trim on the collar and cuffs. Her name was stitched across the front in red. She wore a conductor’s hat and slippers that were shaped like train engines.
Even at age eleven, Joyce hadn’t grown tired of helping her father set up the toy train for Christmas. It was their tradition to watch the film “It’s A Wonderful Life” at the same time.
“You and Mom can go to bed early,” Joyce said. She gave her dad a hug.
Mrs. Trewyn walked into the living room with a tray of hot chocolate, marshmallows, cocoa, and whipped cream for Joyce. Then, her parents hurried off to bed.
“See you in the morning, Joyce,” her father said. He kissed her on the forehead. Her mother kissed her on the cheek. “Merry Christmas!”
Then, Joyce opened one box after the other that housed the Christmas Railroad.
The set had a snow-dusted oval track with a red locomotive, coal cars, train cars, boxcars, caboose, and trolleys. Her father had recently re-painted every snowy building and mountain in the set. Each road, sign, pavement, and sidewalk looked like a miniature version of the real thing with trees and rocks. The setting even had a rotating Christmas tree and carousel.
After winding through a downtown area with its own Grand Central Terminal, station platform, shops, and streetlamps, the train chugged up a hill past a coaling station and through a covered bridge into a village. The Christmas village decorated with colorful lights had homes, schools, churches, lakes, and rivers with green scenery. A water tower stood in the middle of the train set.
“Don’t forget about the people who ride the train!” Joyce said, as she opened a plastic bag of people who would soon get the ride of their lives. “Don’t leave anybody behind!”
Then, for tradition’s sake, Joyce turned on the television to “It’s A Wonderful Life” in black and white. Even if it was on quietly in the background, it kept her motivated. The train’s radio-controlled transmitter also had its own station and speakers where it played Christmas carols as the train ran.
On its first test run, Joyce zoomed the train a little bit faster than it should ride on its thin tracks. She was so excited to have the train up and moving. When she hit the brakes, it wobbled back and forth but did not fall off the tracks. She was having so much fun!
Only moments later, when stopping for a passenger, Joyce ran the locomotive off the train tracks and hit the covered bridge, and the people on it, which toppled the water tower and collapsed the entire train set, thereby closing Grand Central Terminal. Her heart sank to her feet, and a lump formed in her throat. She had destroyed everything.
The locomotive smoked, blinking its headlight, and the caboose lost a wheel.
She looked at the wreckage, pulled her knees to her chest, and wept. It was Christmas Eve, and she could not cry all night.
“Oh no . . . it’s ruined,” Joyce said with a gasp. “What am I going to do now? I have to fix this by morning. Dad will be so disappointed!”
She ran into the storage closet, and pulled out the paint, brushes, glue, foam, wood, screwdriver, and hammer. She wasn’t even sure how to use all the supplies, but she couldn’t give up now. She was so annoyed at herself for damaging the train set.
“How am I going to fix this?” Joyce said. “I think I need an angel like Clarence, the guardian angel in ‘It’s A Wonderful Life.’”
Tears streamed down her cheeks as the railroad transmitter still played Christmas carols. What was she going to tell her father? She had to put the train set back in perfect condition.
After a few minutes of failed attempts at repairing the Christmas Railroad, she imagined how upset her father was going to be. Anything she did to fix the train set seemed to make it worse. She couldn’t believe that she had ruined one of his favorite things in the world, and she didn’t have enough carpentry skills to repair it.
“Angels, if you can hear me, could you stop doing what you’re doing now, and come help me fix the Christmas Railroad? Like Clarence, the guardian angel in ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,’” Joyce prayed. “I smashed the toy train set big time. Thank you. Yours truly, Joyce.”
All of a sudden, a flicker of light appeared, and the music from the train set went static for a moment. Then, a cold breeze blew the family room window open and bounced the curtains. Joyce ran to shut the window, only to be greeted by an elderly-looking man that was trying to climb through the window.
“Who are you?” Joyce said. “I can only let you in the house if you’re an angel.”
“I’m Gabriel,” the angel said with a wink. “I’m on Christmas Eve overtime duty.”
“Gabriel? Yes, I’ve heard of you,” Joyce said. “You should try to get your own movie.”
“Maybe we can work on that together. Do you have an agent?” Gabriel said. “Right now, we need to fix your train set, so it works by morning.”
“Okay, but why don’t you have any wings?” Joyce said. “How do I know that you’re not a burglar?”
“Not all angels have wings while visiting Earth,” Gabriel said. He put one leg after the other in front of him and handed her a new locomotive from his red bag of gifts. “Some of us look like regular people.”
“Be careful not to hurt yourself,” Joyce said, as he made it through the window. “I guess you’re not a thief, or you wouldn’t come with gifts.” She paused a moment and noticed that his face glowed with a shimmer. “Did you get your bag of presents from Heaven or Santa’s workshop?”
“Oh, these gifts are from Heaven,” Gabriel explained. “We are well-stocked up there.”
For the next few hours, Joyce and Gabriel glued and hammered the covered bridge, the water tower, and Grand Central Terminal along with all the other pieces to a sturdy new board. They covered the board with cotton batting and white felt for snow. They added glitter for sparkle. They used a mirror to make a new frozen pond.
The scratched set pieces also got new paint. Then, they glued the miniature people back together. The locomotive got a tune-up and a new headlight, and the caboose got a new wheel. The train tracks got straightened and secured again. Then, Joyce emptied every toy train box from Gabe’s bag. She knew her father would be happy to have additional cars and pieces in his collection.
“The Christmas Railroad looks new!” Joyce said. “It’s my Christmas gift to my dad.”
“Even the smallest tragedies can be turned into something good,” Gabriel said, as he cleaned up the last bits of the mess. “Now I have to leave before your parents find out I was here! A lot of adults don’t even believe in angels.”
“I definitely learned that angels are real,” Joyce said. “Even if I made a mistake and really made a mess, you were only a prayer away to help me. I didn’t mean to break the toy train set. I was only having fun.”
“I’ll always be watching over you, especially at Christmas,” Gabriel said.
“Every time I play with the toy train set, I’ll think of you,” Joyce said, as she gave him a hug. She noticed that he waited until she let go.
Then, Gabriel crawled back through the window. “Remember, God’s angels are always nearby, even if you can’t see them!”
A flash of light blinded Joyce for a moment. She could no longer see Gabriel.
“Where did you go?” Joyce said. She poked her head out the window and looked for Gabe. She missed him already. Then, she turned around to find her father standing behind her.
“Merry Christmas! Joyce, you’re awake so early,” Mr. Trewyn said. “Cold air is coming inside the house! Are you trying to catch snowflakes on your tongue?”
Joyce closed the window and smiled at her mother and father in their Christmas pajamas and robes. She wondered if they heard her talking to Gabriel. If they did, they didn’t mention it.
“Wow! You stayed up all night renovating the Christmas Railroad for me. I love it!” her dad said. “Re-joice! Re-joice! Again, I say re-joice!”
“I knew I heard noise last night,” her mother said. “You would have thought it was Santa Claus jumping down the chimney!”
Joyce and her father rejoiced all Christmas day that the Christmas Railroad was open for business. It worked better than ever. Everyone arrived to his or her destination right on time without falling off the tracks. And every time Joyce heard a bell ring that Christmas, she smiled and thought that maybe another angel had just earned his wings!
Copyright 2015, 2025 Jennifer Waters
No comments:
Post a Comment