“¡Feliz Navidad!”

By Tedra Merrill Balls

That Christmas Eve was like so many others I could remember. A soft, powdery snow decorated our small Cache Valley town, making it look like a giant frosted gingerbread village. In the middle of town by the church, the school, and the store, strings of red and blue lights greeted late Christmas Eve travelers as they hurried on to warm reunions with loved ones. Every house on our street—where my husband and baby and I were vacationing with my folks—was glowing with an aura of happiness, the kind that love at Christmastime brings. That is, every house glowed except one.

My little sister Mollie had just finished setting up the nativity scene she had gotten from Primary. With this tradition completed and the story of Christmas read from the Bible, our family was settling down in front of a cheery fire. Then Mom, always the one to think of others, kind of sighed and said, “It sure looks sad and lonely next door. I wonder what kind of Christmas that poor man must be having?”

Our new neighbor was a Mexican national, working for some Californians who owned a dairy farm in our little town of Weston, Idaho. He had arrived there to begin work early in November. With him had come his beautiful dark-eyed family. None of them could speak English. His lonely little wife had lasted in this cold foreign place slightly more than a month, and then she had gathered her little ones and fled back to a warmer climate and to her family.

The poor husband was left alone. He seemed like a very ambitious man, working from early morning to late at night. But he also seemed very gruff. Any attempts at communication had proved futile, even unwelcome. So here it was Christmas Eve, and there was our neighbor all alone in his quiet house, without a sign of Christmas anywhere.

“I don’t suppose he even has anything good to eat tonight,” Mom commented. We looked at each other, then the idea began to snowball. Here we were in the midst of plenty. We could share. We would share. My sisters, Jill and Meridee, became exuberant. They were giggling and planning when someone (perhaps pessimistic me) almost burst their balloon. Would our offering be wanted or even accepted? From past experience this possibility seemed unlikely.

Then Daddy counseled wisely, “Why wouldn’t it be wanted and appreciated? This neighbor, even though a gruff stranger, is a brother—another child of God. And tonight he is a very lonely child of God.”

So we went on with our planning and preparations. Soon we had plates heaping with scrumptious holiday food, covered with napkins to keep it warm. As we girls grabbed our coats, another question was posed. How could we make the man understand our mission? Since he didn’t speak English, would he know what we were saying when we chorused “Merry Christmas”?

Bravely I countered, “Don’t worry. After all, I have studied Spanish for two whole quarters at the university. I am practically an expert!”

So off we went—a parade of nervous, giggling females bearing gifts, stumbling and slipping in the snow, but determined to let our lonesome neighbor know that someone was thinking of him this Christmas Eve.

Suddenly I found myself shoved to the front of the pack at his door. I knocked, and after what seemed forever we heard a shuffling, and then the door opened a suspicious crack. We shrank back momentarily, but then our courage soared and we started to say, “Merry Christmas.” He looked puzzled, but he opened the door wide. The light from his lamp illuminated us, and shyly we held out the plates we had brought. He looked at us. We looked at him. Nobody moved. What were we to do?

Then it hit me. “Feliz Navidad”—the Spanish Christmas greeting we had learned in class! I choked out something that sounded like “Feliz Navidad,” and he began to smile, a big, beautiful Christmas Eve smile.

“Feliz Navidad,” he sort of whispered. Then everyone started saying “Feliz Navidad.” We were smiling, we were laughing, we were almost crying as we shared the spirit of the occasion.

Then he looked at the plates and motioned for us to come in. So in we went. After depositing the food on a nearby table, we turned to leave, and he followed us out saying over and over, “Muchas gracias, muchas gracias.” Then the door closed.

We looked at one another and began to laugh, and we hugged each other. It had been so much fun—the best time ever. The very best of many wonderful, happy Christmases.

• Tedra Merrill Balls, a homemaker, serves as Relief Society pianist in the Pocatello Eighth Ward, Pocatello Idaho North Stake.

Illustrations by Glen Edwards