“Like I said during the sleigh ride,” he continued, “I find you to be smart, considerate, thoughtful, kind, beautiful….”
There was emotion behind his words. Her cheeks grew warm. And he’d just called her beautiful—he hadn’t said that before.
But no way was a compliment getting him off the hook. “If you think kind words will distract me, think again.”
He shook his head. “Just telling it like it is.”
His gaze was serious and sincere — stubbornly so.
She pushed back a rush of emotion. “Okay,” she said, struggling to gather her thoughts. “I’ll tell you why I think you’re wrong. Are you familiar with the parable from India about the blind men and the elephant?”
He frowned. “I don’t think so, no.”
She paused as a customer eased past them. Never, not in a million years, would she have predicted she’d one day have this conversation with a visiting best-selling author in the home-decor aisle of her local hardware store.
“The parable goes like this,” she said. “A group of blind men are asked to touch an elephant and share what they think it is. One man touches the elephant’s trunk and announces that he’s found a snake. Another man touches a tusk and says he’s found a spear. Another touches an ear and decides it’s a fan.”
Daniel nodded. “So what you’re saying is…?”
“The blind men don’t have a full picture of the elephant. And when it comes to Christmas, neither do you.”
His expression grew thoughtful. “What you’re saying is: I’m a blind man and the elephant is Christmas.”
“Pretty much.”
“You’re saying that over-commercialization —my main beef —is just one part of Christmas and it’s wrong of me to ignore everything else that makes the holiday special.”
“Exactly.”
“Well,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I suppose that’s possible.”
“Before you arrived in town, I told myself that I wasn’t going to get into it with you about your essay. My job, I told myself, was to guide you around town, not change your mind. But I’ve changedmymind about that. I’m going to share something with you.”
“Please,” he said, his eyes alive with feeling.
“I partially agree with your essay. Your concern about over-commercialization has some validity, in my view. Sometimes, to our detriment, we get too hung up on spend-spend-spend —and I’m saying this as a shopkeeper who makes half of her annual revenue at Christmas.”
“Glad we agree on that.”
“Partiallyagree —let’s be clear.”
“If I’m hearing you right, what you’re saying is that, even if my commercialization criticism is valid, I’m missing….”
“Everything else.”
“Things like?”
“Well,” she said, “that’s for you to figure out. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Fair enough.”
“I’d suggest approaching what you do up here with an open heart. It seems you’ve been doing that, at least so far — so keep at it. Just as you discovered with your volunteer home-repair work, what you get from Christmas is a reflection of what you give.”
“Point taken.”
“Bottom line, I believe your essay is a miss because it misses the big picture. Now that I’ve gotten to know you, I’ve become, I guess you could say,invested” —emotion surged through her — “in helping you understand that.”
His brown eyes softened. “I’m glad to hear that.”
