Free A Camp Edson Christmas by Cynthia Davis

A Camp Edson Christmas
    By Cynthia Davis
     
    Copyright © 2007, 2011 Greenroom Books
     
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    Christina Brannigan sighed as she shuffled
through the scraps of stray reindeer antlers, red noses and
tattered ears. Who knew eight children could generate a two-inch
accumulation of paper waste in under an hour?
    The table didn’t look much better. Gobs of
glue and glitter clung heavily to the areas surrounding the
campers’ chairs. A couple paper vowels and a handful of consonants
covered the table where the kid with the thick glasses sat. He’d
shredded his reindeer pattern into strips, forming oversized
letters which he rearranged throughout the entire craft session.
Surveying the state of the tiny craft cabin, Christina sank into
the nearest folding chair and dropped her head to the table.
    “Thanks for craft time. I wish I could stay
here all day.”
    Christina bolted upright, peeling a
glue-smeared antler from her left cheek. She started to respond to
the snot-nosed 8-year-old with knotted hair and a lazy eye, but her
“you’re welcome” trailed into a drawn out “umm…” as she scrambled
to remember the kid’s name.
    “Faith,” the girl supplied, wiping her entire
forearm across her nose as she backed against the door.
    Christina mentally kicked herself.
Remembering their names was rule one. She knew that.
    Faith waved a soggy reindeer head in
Christina’s general direction. The ragged, stumpy protrusions
sprouting from the top didn’t bear any resemblance to antlers, much
less the hands after which they were patterned.
    Surfing the internet for emergency craft
ideas, Christina thought that gluing handprint antler cut outs to
reindeer heads seemed like a fun, easy craft; but then, she wasn’t
the only one left drained and disillusioned by overly optimistic
hopes for Camp Edson’s impromptu Christmas Camp.
    She had been sorting through a collection of
stubby scarves and half-finished hats, questioning the wisdom of
counting on her new-found knitting skills for gift-giving purposes
when the e-mail from her aunt Meg appeared on her computer screen
just before eleven o’clock one night last week—December
18 th , to be exact.
    Nothing about the last minute request
surprised her. Meg Wilson was no stranger to big goals or
impossible challenges. After all, she’d left a high-paying,
fast-paced career as a rock-climbing instructor at a Manhattan
sporting complex to manage the affairs of young, disadvantaged
campers with her husband, Michael and a mostly teen-aged staff at a
rural camp in upstate New York. No way was Meg going to turn down a
last minute request from Social Services to take in eight kids for
the holidays. She told the social worker yes on the spot—those kids
would celebrate Christmas with her and Michael and her adopted
daughter, Dee, right in their cozy log cabin if it came to
that.
    But that wasn’t necessary. By December
21 st , Christina found herself in a whirlwind of cutting,
pasting, baking, and frosting alongside an entire team of former
camp counselors and community volunteers who worked in shifts to
make Christmas a reality for the displaced kids.
    She glanced at the wall clock as she swept
brown reindeer scraps and stray eyeballs into a large dustpan. Six hours! she calculated in relief. Tonight she would sleep
in her own bed, full of her mom’s cookies and pumpkin pie. She was
glad to have done her part, but even happier to be heading home.
Even though Camp Edson had long since become more to her than
convenient summer job, she had to admit that the past four days
hadn’t been among her best at