By Linda Voss
(From the January 2004 issue of the Update.)
Arriving during a brief moment of snow flurries, Candice Poarch and I represented WRW for gift wrapping at the new Barnes and Noble in Clarendon this holiday season. I volunteered thinking of it as another opportunity to interact with booksellers. The bookseller looked at it as an opportunity for volunteer organizations to do some community outreach and collect donations. The experience was a little bit of both and more than that as well.
We were in good company, sandwiched between The Reading Connection and the Friends of the Arlington County Library. Another friend of mine (who had also just published her first book) came by to help with the rush hour, which turned out to be slower than expected. For an afternoon in the middle of the hectic Christmas rush, the three of us provided a service in the interest of others, and $47 will go to combat domestic violence in the name of former WRW member Nancy Richards Akers. Standing at the ready, we heard about some of the other good things people were doing, different ways families were dealing with the holiday idea of giving. We chatted with a father out shopping with his freckle-faced son for Mom’s birthday present. When it came time for the son to pick the wrapping paper, the father explained how the mother would divorce him if they wrapped her birthday present in Christmas wrapping, leaving only one choice of paper. And the father turned down our offer of the plain little cards to go with the gift, informing the son that he’d be making the card. The head of a government-contracting maintenance company stopped by to get his last present wrapped. The only thing he had left to arrange for Christmas was the luncheon he had bought for his workers. He gave us a warm smile and wished us a blessed Christmas as he left.
Yes, we were able to talk about our books. We batted around some ideas with the manager who had arranged the book signing, Melissa Subt, for a book signing in February. Yes, we compared notes between us about promoting our books. Getting the time with Candice and my friend Joanne was a pleasure. (I learned a nifty new wrapping technique from Joanne!) But also, being there in the service of others—whether harried shoppers keeping a watchful eye on the kids, books, literacy, or families suffering from domestic abuse—did something to evoke in some small way the spirit of Christmas.
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Linda Voss writes historicals under the name Kaitlynn Merlot and has published “The Muse as Puppy,” in the anthology Crumbs in the Keyboard, http://www.crumbsinkeyboard.com (proceeds donated to the Center for Women and Families).
