Joy · Day 2
Wednesday, December 23, 2026
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Today in the WoodsEvery Story Gets a Cheer
Today in the WoodsEvery Story Gets a Cheer
Who outside this house celebrated with me this year?
Pilgrim, the made-up traveler from the last three weeks, had stopped in the narrow hallway with both eyes closed while the voice at the door marked Plenty went on about the bag being too small. Pilgrim breathed, opened both eyes, and said it again: "Ten more steps." Then ten more after that.
The line of light along the floor kept growing. Somewhere along the way, Pilgrim noticed it wasn't a light at all. It was the gap under a door. The hallway ended at it, plain and wooden, with a warm brass latch. Pilgrim lifted the latch, and the door swung open.
The first thing that happened was that the bag slid off Pilgrim's shoulder and hit the floor. Pilgrim hadn't decided to drop it. It just fell, and with it went a weight Pilgrim had stopped noticing, the way you stop hearing a refrigerator until it shuts off. The bag had fallen open, and there was almost nothing inside, only a coat and the end of the bread. All that weight had been the hoping, and Pilgrim didn't have to carry it anymore. Pilgrim stood in the doorway and laughed for no reason at all.
Then, out of habit, Pilgrim waited for the floor to start moving. It didn't.
The room beyond was warm and wide, with a long table down the middle full of bread and fruit and something that smelled like cinnamon. People were already sitting there, travelers who had come up through narrow hallways of their own. One of them saw Pilgrim in the doorway and stood up, and then the whole table was on its feet, cheering the way a family cheers when someone they've been waiting for finally walks in. Nobody asked what Pilgrim had done to earn a seat. Somebody just pulled out a chair. For the rest of the evening they passed the food around and told each other how they'd made it: the doors they almost opened, the one they did open and regretted, the ten more steps. Every story got a cheer, and Pilgrim cheered as loud as anyone. For the first time since the gate, nothing was missing.
Much later, when the table had gone quiet, Pilgrim walked to the far end of the room, past a second door Pilgrim hadn't noticed before, to a window. Outside, under a sky full of stars, the land fell away into a deep valley, and on the far side rose another mountain, higher than anything Pilgrim had imagined, with a small light shining near its top.
Pilgrim looked back at the table, at the fire and the empty plates. This was everything Pilgrim had hoped for, and it had been worth every step. But from the window, Pilgrim could see that it was only a piece of something bigger: a piece of peace.
Pilgrim had left home to find out what Pilgrim was for. Is this it? Is this a place to stay?
We'll leave Pilgrim at the window for now. Pilgrim's story picks up again on December 30.
Yesterday's two waves were relief and rejoicing, and Pilgrim felt both. First the bag hit the floor and fell open, and the hoping Pilgrim had carried all that way was over. Then came the table. Pilgrim's relief happened alone in a doorway, but the rejoicing happened with people, and their cheering meant they were glad Pilgrim was there. Joy grows when it's shared. The woman in Jesus's story from yesterday knew that. When she found her coin, she called her friends and neighbors over and said, "Rejoice with me." Joy kept to yourself tends to shrink, but joy told to people who are glad for you gets bigger.
Joy also has a third wave, and Pilgrim met it at the window. It's the reveal: once you finally reach the place you were aiming for, you can see what you couldn't see from below. It comes with a part that can surprise people. The relief fades. A few weeks after the wedding, the marriage is ordinary days, and a few weeks after the birth, the baby is up at three in the morning. It's easy to feel a little let down when that happens, as if we did joy wrong. But joy fading is part of how it works. If the feeling of arriving never wore off, nobody would ever look out the window. The fading turns our eyes to the next peak, and the reveal shows us there is one.
Many of us had people this year who rejoiced with us when a wait ended, or let us rejoice with them when theirs did.
Who outside your house rejoiced with you this year, or let you rejoice with them?
Each person takes one red paper circle.
On the front, write the name of someone outside your house who celebrated with you this year, or who let you celebrate with them: a friend, neighbor, teacher, coach, coworker, or grandparent.
On the back, write what they did. "Thank you for showing up at the hospital with balloons and a pizza the day Grandma came home."
Hang it on the green layer, writing toward the wall.
Red ornaments stay on the tree. Nobody takes them down on Christmas Day.
Kids' story: read "Every Story Gets a Cheer" from The Overflow Adventure in Wanderful Woods together.
Time: 15 to 20 minutes. The Heart takes about three minutes to read aloud.
With kids: ask, "Why do you think the travelers cheered for Pilgrim? Who cheers for you when something good happens?" A child can draw the person who celebrated with them, or tell you what to write.
Pilgrim's story: it continues on December 30, Love week's Day 2. If someone asks whether Pilgrim stays, leave it open.
Hello, my wonderful story friends! Last time, the longest night was finally over, and Mr. Monkey found out that sometimes happy comes out as tears first, and then as a great big whoop. Tonight, everybody who helped keep the lights is having supper together in the long snow fort.
When something good happens to you, who do you want to tell? Let’s go see who comes to supper.
The long snow fort in the middle of Sunny Square glowed from end to end. There was a light in every window, and inside, it smelled like hot apples and honey and warm bread. Snow sparkled on the roof like sugar.
Everybody was there. Mr. Moose and Mr. Monkey. Bruno and Hazel and Dottie and Benji. Ricky and Shiloh. Sammy, upside down on a snow shelf near the ceiling. And all the grown-ups, crowded in along the walls.
It was a supper for everybody who had helped keep the lights lit through the longest night. Bruno had made the table himself, out of a long flat log, and he was very proud of it. It had only one wobble.
Mr. Monkey was so happy he couldn’t sit still. He bounced in his seat. He bounced so much that the whole log table bounced with him, and every bowl on it went clink-clink-clink.
“Mr. Monkey,” said Hazel, holding on to her bowl. “You’re bouncing the soup.”
“Hee hee hee! Sorry, soup!”
Then Dottie’s ears went up. Her nose went up. “Somebody’s outside!”
Mr. Monkey looked out the fort door. There, standing in the snow just outside, were the old crow and his son. And lined up behind them, in a row, were three little round fluffy grandchicks, so fluffy they looked like three gray dandelion puffs with beaks.
But they didn’t come in. They just stood there at the door.
“Come in!” called Mr. Monkey.
The old crow shook his head. “This supper is for the friends who kept the lights,” he said in his scratchy voice. “We didn’t keep any lights. We’ll just watch from out here.”
And the three little chicks peeked around his legs, looking in at the warm glowing fort, at the food, at everybody inside.
Mr. Monkey felt it pull at his chest. He didn’t want the crows to watch from the door. He wanted them inside, in the warm, with everybody.
“Mr. Moose,” he whispered. “They think they have to have done something to come in.”
Mr. Moose looked at the crows in the snow. He thought about the night on Lookout Ledge, and the longest night, and the light on the crow’s tree. Had anybody kept the lights so they could have a supper? No. They kept the lights so nobody would be in the dark. So the lights were for the crows, too. For everybody.
Then he looked around the fort. Every seat was full. Every bit of the long log table was taken.
“They don’t have to do anything,” said Mr. Moose. “But they do need a place to sit.”
Mr. Monkey stood up on the table. “EVERYBODY SCOOT!” he called.
And everybody scooted. Hazel scooted, and Dottie scooted, and Ricky scooted. Bruno scooted too, so hard that he scooted right through the side wall of the fort, FWUMP, and ended up sitting outside in the snow with his bowl still in his paws.
He looked down at his bowl. Then he looked back in through the big Bruno-shaped hole.
“Now there’s room,” said Bruno. “Haw haw haw!”
“Hee hee hee!” went Mr. Monkey. “Bruno made a door!”
Mr. Moose pulled out a seat at the table, right in the middle, and Mr. Monkey patted it. “For you,” he said.
The old crow came in slowly. His son came in after him. And the three grandchicks came hopping in last, hop, hop, hop, and then, instead of sitting on the seats, they hopped right up onto Dottie’s head and sat there in a row like three fluffy hats.
Dottie held very, very still. Her tail wanted to wag so badly. She didn’t let it. “Are they on me?” she whispered.
“They’re on you,” said Ricky.
“Ha! Ha!” whispered Dottie, very carefully, so her head wouldn’t shake.
Then the stories started.
Daddy Moose stood up first, which he almost never did. “On the longest night,” he said, “I checked the light at the top of the cliff eleven times.” And everybody cheered, “HOORAY!”, even though it wasn’t a very exciting story, because it was Daddy Moose’s.
Hazel stood up. “When we climbed the windy ridge, I took the slide,” she said. “And it went the wrong way. And I climbed all the way back up by myself!” And everybody cheered, “HOORAY!”, and Hazel went, “Hee hee hee… SNORT!”
Shiloh stood up, very small. “I said ‘look up,’” he said softly. And everybody cheered the loudest yet, “HOORAY!”, and Shiloh turned pink under his wool.
Ricky stood up last, with his light list. “My story is my list,” he said. And he read the whole thing. Every light in the woods, one at a time. “The Moose home. The treehouse. The three candles. The long fort…” It took a very long time. Benji fell asleep. Then Benji woke up again. Ricky was still reading.
“…and the crows’ tree,” said Ricky at last. “The end.”
And everybody cheered, “HOORAY!”, and Benji cheered the loudest, because he’d had a nap.
Every story got a cheer. And every time, the cheer got a little bigger, the way a snowball gets bigger when it rolls down a hill. Mr. Monkey felt it growing. The happy wasn’t getting used up. Every time somebody told their good part, there was more of it.
“Mr. Moose,” he whispered. “It keeps getting bigger.”
“It does,” whispered Mr. Moose.
Then Sammy zipped down off her snow shelf, landed in the middle of the table, and said, “What do snowmen eat for lunch?”
Nobody knew.
“ICE-BURGERS!” And she zipped right back up to the ceiling.
“Ha! Ha!” barked Dottie.
“Hee hee,” went Benji.
Then it was the old crow’s turn. He didn’t stand up. He just looked around the table, at all the faces in the candlelight, and he started to tell it, slowly. About the long night. About being alone on his branch. About calling across the river, and nothing coming back. And then, small and far away, an answer.
“My son called back,” said the old crow.
The friends had all been there. They all knew this story already. But when the old crow said it, everybody cheered anyway, louder than for anybody, “HOORAY!” And the three little grandchicks on Dottie’s head cheered loudest of all, “PEEP! PEEP! PEEP!”, and bounced up and down so much that Dottie’s head bounced too, and this time her tail wagged anyway.
The old crow looked around at everybody cheering for him. And he made that sound again, half a caw and half a laugh. It was the happiest sound in the fort.
Then Bruno tried to tell his story. “And then I tried to sound like a crow—“ he started, and he took a big breath, and he did it again. “MOOOOOOO.”
“Haw haw haw!”
“Hee hee hee!”
“PEEP! PEEP! PEEP!”
The grandchicks liked that one so much that they spent the rest of supper trying to moo, and all that came out was “Mee-oo. Mee-oo,” like three very small, very confused cows.
When supper was over, nobody wanted to leave. The fort was warm, and the lights were glowing in every window, and Bruno’s new door let the stars in.
“What a day!” said Mr. Monkey, walking home with Mr. Moose through the snow. “We had supper in the long fort. The crows didn’t think they could come in, so everybody scooted, and Bruno scooted right through the wall.
The grandchicks sat on Dottie’s head like three hats, and she held still. Everybody told their story, and every story got a cheer, and Sammy said snowmen eat ice-burgers. And the old crow got the biggest cheer of all.”
Mr. Monkey whistled, and Mr. Moose hummed, and together they sang:
We are better together,
Moose and Monkey forever.
And behind them in Sunny Square, the long fort glowed in the dark, and from somewhere inside it came three tiny voices, still trying their very hardest to moo.