The Jones family weren't excited about Christmas that year. Work was too hard, the days were too long, life was too demanding and there just didn't seem to be money for extras. As tired out and grumpy as they felt, Christmas just seemed to be an extra. An extra full of extras.
Chippy the squirrel sat in his tree outside their house and watched them as they trudged out of the house in the mornings and slumped into the house in the evening. Even the house itself seemed to sag with melancholy.
Chippy was sad for them, but then really, what can a squirrel do to alleviate the worry of a household? Chippy thought awhile longer, because he could feel the sadness rubbing off on him. No one wants a sad squirrel, he thought.
It was then that he had his idea. He could make them happy with what made him happy. He enlisted his friend, Oslo the beaver. Oslo was always up for a good chin-wag and soon they'd fixed the plan good and proper.
Oslo got to work right away. He worked and worked through the night and, by all accounts, the Jones family should have noticed when they left their house the next morning. Such was their collective fog of stress, they just passed right by.
It's difficult to pass by a beaver chopping down the tree in your front yard, but if you get distracted enough, you can manage it.
With the tree down and the glum folks away, Chippy and Oslo had time to get the tree into the house. They might have broken a lock to get in, but it was that dodgy one that Mrs Jones had been meaning to get to anyway. If they hadn't broken it, it would've broken itself soon enough.
With the tree up, they set to decorating. It wasn't the prettiest sight. A squirrel and a beaver are not known decorators. Still, it was done. It was thorough. From a scavenged Barbie at the top of the tree to a not perfectly round wreath of nuts on the front door. It wasn't meant to be perfect, though. It was just meant to be a piece of joy, a little spot of light to shine through those clouds that had blocked out the Jones family smile.
When they got home and realized what had happened, even as they almost couldn't believe it, they felt that joy. They saw the half-gnawed doll tucked in the tree. They saw the badly misshapen nut wreath on the door. They looked at the stump in their yard and at a squirrel racing around trying to refill a summer's stockpile of nuts.
The Jones family was no longer under a cloud of too busy and too tired. They seemed to bounce through their days, the merriest part of the street.
That year Chippy got the biggest Christmas present he'd ever seen. It was a kind of dog kennel, but fitted up with tunnels to hide and play it. And nuts! There were nuts from countries that Chippy had never even heard of and more than he'd need in three years.
The next Christmas, Dave and Morley would be surprised to find that they'd gotten each other squirrel kennels. In fact, it was a very popular gift on their street that year. Oh, it wasn't a matter of keeping up with the Joneses. No, they were hoping that they'd get a piece of that joy and glow that the Jones family had seemed to have all year. A pet squirrel would be worth that.
But the Jones family knew that joy came from efforts that seem impossible, like maybe you couldn't believe they really happened. Joy came from someone loving you enough to give up everything. Every Christmas they managed to find joy. They always hung an acorn on the tree as they celebrated their little reminder with the very big heart.
This is not actually written by McLean, but it's funnier if you read it in his voice. No disrespect meant.
