The NOEL was in the Cupboard

I do not remember a Christmas without the ceramic NOEL. Four greenish, redish ceramic letter candleholders that would grace my Grandmother's piano in Mullins, South Carolina and now hold court on top of the wood cabinet beside her refrigerator in Columbia. 

They aren't an exciting piece of Christmas decoration.  My Grandmother and my parents each own much more impressive nuggets of frivolity to ring in the season.  But these letters are a small sliver of family experience that remains important.  They've been in the family for over 50 years, having been a gift from a family friend who used to babysit my dad when he was a toddler. They're simple and unremarkable, but it's hard to picture Christmas without the NOEL.  Or the LEON.  Or the ELON. Or the NOLE. Or, my personal favorite, the LONE.

Rearranging the letters was just something everybody did.  You did it preferably when Grandmother's back was turned.  Maybe she was digging in the pantry for the cookie tin of fudge.  Maybe she was adding pepper to the chicken bog.  Maybe she was sitting in the living room, crossword puzzle in hand.  But if you walked by the letters and they happen to be spelling their intended word, well, somebody needed to rectify that.

My dad poked around online and found out that these dear letters are not, in fact, a novelty.  They are everywhere.  So we are clearly not the only family with this tradition and I like to wonder how many other kids grew up rearranging the ceramics to Grandma's chagrin.  My dad bought a set for each of us kids and he gave me mine last year.  A small gift, but a very important one.

For the life of me, however, I could not remember where I tucked them.  My apartment is very small, so there really are few places where anything of a decent size could be lost.  Under the bed? Nope. In the closet? Nope. Forgotten rung of a bookshelf? Nope. The infamous drawer-that-shall-not-be-opened? Nope.

I was rather heartbroken by the loss and had even begun to search online for a replacement. (Note: For those of you who want one of these, I recommend waiting til after the holidays.  Somebody out there is jacking up prices on these bad boys and I just don't condone black market ceramic peddling)  But, in the midst of a baking escapade yesterday and the pursuit of a long lost wire whisk (never found it), I opened a cupboard that never gets opened as it requires a chair for me to reach.  And there they were, spelling L-O-N-E all on their own.

They're sitting on my window sill now.  And while the broken window blind, cigar box,  and #1 Lawyer mug may surround them with a bit of non-holy non-Christmas reality, I believe they look right at home.