A few years ago in early November, a gift was left on my doorstep. It was a bale of hay, tightly bound with string.
Some women get flowers, I get straw. Even though a note wasn’t attached, I knew who was responsible. I had recently visited a friend’s house and was bowled over by her harvest entrance that would make Martha Stewart swoon.
Her front door was surrounded by pumpkins and glorious sunflowers placed on top of a hay bale. She credited her husband, Karl, for the hay bale element. Well done, Karl. Well done. I complimented his hay selection, which was perfect, not over-the-top, but impactful. Like Macy’s in New York City window-display impactful.
I love fall. It’s my favorite season. And for many years, I tried to decorate my home accordingly. On the side table in my foyer, I’d bring out the miniature wooden pumpkins with pumpkin-shaped candies in the pumpkin-shaped candy dish next to the pumpkin-scented candle because I ascribed to the Pier One belief that you really can’t have too much pumpkin. Yet my front door exterior just had a harvest wreath — with hot-glued mini pumpkins, naturally.
I felt something was missing, but what? Then I visited my friend.
It was the hay.
As I drove around town the next few days, suddenly all I could see were finely decorated front entries with hay bales. Where had hay been all my life? And where exactly does one go to secure a bale for non-agrarian purposes? I’m a city girl who lacked hay-purchasing prowess.
A week later I pulled into my driveway and there it was. My very own bale of hay. It was almost better than Christmas. Karl was my Hay Bale Santa.
I immediately went to work. Using the hay as my central focal piece, I added all the faux fall vegetables I could find at the craft store. My front entryway was enveloped in mustard yellow, burnt orange and burgundy squash, gourds and other undefinable produce (in the craft universe there exists a maroon vegetable).
Life forced us to downsize that spring, but the following fall another bale of hay arrived at my rental door. Then we had to move again. More straw followed. My Hay Bale Santa was persistent, following us from one rental to the next.
One move was particularly hard. In the aftermath of leaving our home where I received my first hay bale, my family was catapulted into the universe of the unknown. We had moved into a small apartment complex. Most of our remaining possessions were in boxes in the cramped laundry closet. Driving home from an out-of-town work meeting, I pulled into the city limits. Neighborhoods were adorned with pumpkins and hay. That’s when I remembered: It was fall. And I had forgotten. I’m sure those faux vegetables were somewhere in my boxes, but why bother? A bale of hay would look silly on my Lilliputian apartment doorstep.
Then I pulled into the complex parking lot. And there it was – a bale of hay, but not just any bale of hay – a miniature hay bale perfect for a tiny doorstep. Running through the door, I yelled for the kids to grab the maroon vegetables. Hay Bale Santa had struck again! It was time to decorate.
This week is our season of gratitude. I don’t know if Santa Karl knew of my personal challenges through the years, but I suspect he did. And each time I see a bale of hay, I think of how a simple gift of straw made my load a little lighter.
Well done, Karl. Well done.