Here is my small but important to me Christmas miracle (a small one, but still a miracle) story.
Last month we were hit by a host of tragedies at home. Our hot water heater broke and flooded our basement and the neighbors’. The transmission on the car died. Ay slipped on the ice and dislocated her hip (and we don’t have health insurance right now). Those are the top three on the list.
However, even though it was all incredibly traumatic at the time, we’re recovering fine. It was also a fantastic month for me writing wise because I finished one and a half novels, I started getting back into writing short stories, I saw some stories in print, and got some acceptances for submissions I thought long lost.
One thing it all meant was I had to save Christmas shopping until the weekend before Christmas. Crowd-wise it wasn’t a big deal because 1 – I don’t mind Christmas crowds, and 2 – I wake up early by default (5:30 or so usually, without an alarm).
So I headed out on Saturday morning to do my Christmas shopping. I knew exactly what I wanted. One of the things I was determined to get was Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1. Except when I got to the book store, they didn’t have it. Rather than run to every Barnes and Noble and Borders in three valleys, I hit up their websites to see if anyone had it in stock. Apparently, no one in the state did.
Easy solution, I’d order it online. Except that Amazon.com was out of stock too. But…BN.com said they had it in stock, and if I ordered that day (and spent $25 total) I could have it before Christmas and with free shipping. So I did. And about three hours later, I got an e-mail saying that the book would ship on January 11.
*massive pout*
But that the book I ordered only to bring my total up to $25 (random read I’d never heard of but decided to try because it was by Gregory Macguire) would be here before Christmas. Yay 😛
And then about two days before Christmas, I got another e-mail that the Mark Twain book had shipped after all. And it would be here…December 29? Because they sent it via ground shipping.
Lame.
Christmas Eve there was a knock on the door that startled both of us because we weren’t expecting anyone. I answered to find no one there. But a box from Barnes & Noble sat on the doorstep. Some anonymous individual at UPS saw the package come in locally, did some basic assessment about the time of year, and decided that they would deliver it in time for the holiday.
And Ay absolutely loved it when she opened it. The thing is a massive door stop (I didn’t expect it, but think unabridged dictionary-sized), but she was grinning to own such a thing.
So thank you to UPS for something that was probably small but considerate on your part, and made our holiday.