There is something about finding a familiar story in an anthology that makes me happy. Kinda like, I knew this was good! The second story that I loved from Treasure of Christmas Stories was one called Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus, excerpted, of course, from The Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Prairie is actually the second of several books that Wilder wrote about her family experience that bounced between homesteading and moving on in the late 1800s of the American frontier. I loved those earliest books best that showcased littlest Laura with her affinity to her Pa and to always striving for, but never quite matching, perfect older sister Mary’s attitude and behavior. (I won’t touch the un-PC-ness of Wilder’s books as they read in this day and age. For now.)

Ahem. Back to Christmas.

Before Disney Plus and YouTube, before smartphones and separate rooms for every activity, the winter months on the prairie allowed for huge swathes of time for the Ingalls family to sit before a roaring fire in their open-concept home and. . . sew. Or make bullets. Or listen to Pa play the fiddle or read the Bible (on Sundays) and then go to bed.

And so, we find Laura and Mary in the days before Christmas staring out the window at the rain wondering if Christmas will come that year. Because Santa is the one that brings Christmas and snow brings Santa’s reindeer and Santa’s reindeer bring the jolly old elf. And for some reason (probably because of some well-intentioned Ma-and-Pa propaganda) Santa’s reindeer could not come across the roaring creek that was being fed by the constant rain. Like some magical Texas gate.

This is confirmed by Pa when he comes in with a wild turkey for Christmas dinner. The creek is not abating. And here we find out how the propaganda found its footing: Ma and Pa agree that their friend Mr. Edwards, a fellow homesteader who had been invited to Christmas dinner, would not be foolish enough to risk crossing the wild creek for a wild turkey drumstick.

“Of course, that meant that Santa Claus could not come, either.”

And so for a whole page we have to endure the girls going to bed unhappy and Pa so disheartened that he can’t even play the fiddle and Ma suddenly, in spite of all reason, hanging up the girl’s stockings and whispering to a protesting Pa that she could give the girls the last of the white sugar. I repeat: MA HUNG UP ACTUAL SOCKS THAT ACTUAL FEET WENT INTO, PLANNING TO FILL THEM WITH A BAKING STAPLE.

We are so freakin’ spoiled these days.

All that foreshadowing had to lead somewhere and, you guessed it, a cold and wet Mr. Edwards suddenly shows up on their doorstep. When he confesses to Ma and Pa that it wasn’t Christmas dinner that compelled him, but the thought that the little girls would have no gifts on Christmas Day, an eavesdropping-and-supposed-to-be-sleeping Laura sits bolt upright in bed and demands to know if he saw Santa Claus.

While Ma fills the stockings, Mr. Edwards distracts the girls, answering all their questions about him meeting Santa on the streets of Independence, Missouri: how Santa was too old and fat to swim across the river himself, how Santa recognized Edwards from when he was a little boy sleeping in a corn-shuck bed in Tennessee, how Santa led Mr. Edwards over to his pack-mule to retrieve gifts for the girls who lived yonder on the Verdigris River. (Thus solving the snow problem, reasoned Mary.)

Here’s where the real magic happens: as a young girl myself, I would pore over the description of the simple gifts the girls received, as if they were as valuable as those the Magi presented the baby Jesus. A glittering new tin cup. (“Now each had a cup to drink out of.”) A long stick of peppermint candy. (“Sucked…till each stick was sharp-pointed on one end.”) A heart-shaped little cake. (“Made of pure white flour, sweetened with white sugar.”) A shining bright, new penny. (“They had never even thought of such a thing as having a penny.”)

And then, the piece de resistance. Mr. Edwards starts pulling sweet potatoes out of his pockets, nine in all. At that point in my life, I had never eaten a sweet potato before (and did not until I learned their magic firsthand at the Christmas table of my husband’s family.) But surely, they must have been better than regular un-sweet potatoes.

The ensuing description of the Christmas meal was not so compelling because I wanted to eat their food. It was because I wanted their delight, their satisfaction, their wonder. And yet it was generated by such simple things like sweet potatoes you can now find in any grocery store and pennies which you could now find discarded on the ground because they aren’t worth anything anymore.

Now I am not particularly fond of camping. Transport me back to Little House on the Prairie and I would probably be more whiny than a rusty door hinge in a haunted house. But I don’t have to go back in time or take a vow of poverty to appreciate the good messages that Laura Ingalls Wilder has sown into her story.

Things are sweeter when they are unexpected and rare.

Holidays are best celebrated with friends and family close.

The simple things really are the best.

I am thankful today for good stories that help me remember this as December rushes onwards to Christmas Day.