Today, we’ll take a wee break from the ghostly tale. I want to tell you a Christmas story. Now, I can’t vouch for it, but this is exactly the way I heard it from Clifford Reynolds and I don’t reckon I ever knew of him to tell a lie. Here’s what he told me.

***

Piedmont has seen its share of excitement over the years, but nothing prepared the town for the Christmas of the Missing Baby Jesus. It started innocent enough, as all questionable events tend to do.

Every year, the Piedmont First Methodist Church put a fine Nativity scene on its front lawn. There was Mary, serene as any wooden woman could be; Joseph, lean and confused; three wise men looking like they hadn’t been wise since at least the Truman administration; a cow that leaned left from termite damage; and a shepherd boy who had once been repaired with duct tape after an unfortunate encounter with a lawnmower.

And then there was the Baby Jesus. Sanded smooth, painted with gentle hands, and placed in a little wooden cradle lined with an old dish towel from Miss Jolene Boyd’s kitchen. It had been the same dish towel since 1989 and, by holy decree, could never be washed.

Everything would have gone fine if Clyde Kinzalow hadn’t volunteered to watch the Nativity overnight to keep the teenagers from rearranging the wise men into a bar fight again. Clyde took his post seriously and brought a thermos of coffee strong enough to put hair on a tombstone.

Around midnight, a cold breeze swept down from Dugger Mountain. Clyde pulled his coat tighter, sipped his coffee, and told himself nothing in the world could surprise him.

That was when he saw it.

Baby Jesus was gone.

Clyde blinked once. Twice. He rubbed his eyes. The cradle was empty as a Baptist punch bowl.

He let out a shout loud enough to curl the ivy on the church walls. Lights snapped on up and down the street. Within minutes, half of Piedmont had arrived, bundled in pajamas and concern.

Mrs. Delphine pushed her way to the front, nightgown tucked into rubber boots. “Where is the child?” she demanded.

Clyde pointed at the empty cradle. “Vanished. Stolen. Kidnapped. Taken by persons unknown.”

Sadie Mae arrived carrying a blanket and a spatula, because she had been making fudge and did not know what else to do with her hands. “Lord have mercy,” she whispered, “I knew this day would come.”

The railroad men showed up next, led by Cap’n Potts, who had brought a lantern and a crowbar. “Never fear,” he announced. “The DBH Rapid Response Team is here.”

“Nobody asked for you,” Mrs. Delphine muttered.

But it was too late. The railroad men formed a tight circle around the Nativity, mumbling, poking, prodding, and misinterpreting every piece of evidence they saw.

Virgil gasped. “Look at these tracks in the dirt!”

Those were Clyde’s boot prints.

Potts knelt beside the empty cradle. “The kidnapper had a plan. This is the work of a mastermind.”

Delphine rolled her eyes so hard she nearly saw Bethlehem.

Owen walked up calmly, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Now, Clyde,” he said, “are you sure you didn’t just nod off?”

Clyde bristled. “Owen, I have never once nodded off on church property. Not even during Pastor Langford’s sermon series on the Book of Numbers.”

Just then, a small shape appeared at the edge of the church lawn. Everyone froze.

A tiny figure in a red coat toddled forward, carrying something wrapped tight in its arms.

It was little Rosie Pruitt, three years old, bright-eyed, and determined.

She marched up to the Nativity scene, looked at the crowd, and announced in a voice that carried to Anniston:

“He was cold.”

Then she placed Baby Jesus back into the cradle, tucked him neatly under the sacred dish towel, and patted him twice.

Gasps swept through the crowd like a Christmas breeze.

Sadie Mae burst into tears. “Bless her heart, she saved the Savior.”

Cap’n Potts whispered, “I knew it was benevolent intervention.”

Mrs. Delphine knelt down and cupped Rosie’s face in her hands. “Honey, how did you even reach him?”

Rosie grinned proudly. “I used Joseph.”

Everyone turned. Joseph lay tipped over in the grass, face down in what had been Clyde’s coffee.

“Well,” Delphine said, standing, “there you have it.”

Pastor Langford, still in slippers and a bathrobe that looked suspiciously like a choir robe turned inside out, stepped forward and placed a hand on Clyde’s shoulder.

“Let this be a lesson to us all,” he said. “Sometimes the smallest among us carries the greatest wisdom.”

Clyde nodded solemnly. “And sometimes we should not trust a grown man to watch a wooden baby after midnight.”

Everyone agreed.

The town reset the Nativity, righted Joseph, and added an extra blanket to the cradle at Rosie’s insistence. They all stood back, hands over their hearts, marveling at the simple truth:

Christmas had come early to Piedmont, right there under the porchlight glow of First Methodist Church. Not through miracles or mystery, but through the gentle hands of a child who saw a baby that looked cold and decided that love was more important than rules.

And that, Mrs. Delphine said later, was the kind of sermon a town could live on for the rest of the winter.

*****

To my family, friends, and readers in Piedmont, and to the rest of the world, Merry Christmas!