The Christmas Owl

It had been a long, but joyous Christmas Eve. We had a sumptuous Holiday dinner with friends and family, followed by a beautiful Midnight Mass at our church. My husband and I were tired but happy and had just tucked ourselves into our warm winter bed when there was a scurry of something in our bedroom fireplace! “Reindeer,” I giggled. He chuckled. But, I grabbed a flashlight and got up to investigate. 
I had to practically lay on the floor to see up into the chimney. It was very dark but I could hear the wind howling. Or was that the wind?  “Quiet, please, “ I whispered. I heard it again. “There’s an animal in here,” I hissed.
“In the fireplace?” he asked, incredulously.
“I think it’s on a shelf thingy,” I answered. “Go get some crackers and peanut butter so we can get it to come down. We’ll catch it then get it out. It’s probably a squirrel.”  I pulled the chain fireplace screen closed.
So, we set out the bait and tried to sleep. We must have drifted off when suddenly we heard a fluttering. I crept across to the fireplace with the flashlight and peeked in. Two huge eyes stared back at me. “It’s an owl!” I hooted.
“Oh geesh,” my husband replied.
We removed the window screens and opened all our bedroom windows. I carefully pulled back the fireplace screen and tried and missed the little owl with a towel. It flew erratically around our bedroom. It tried to land on the curtain rods and flew into the bedroom mirror. It fell onto my jewelry box. My husband tossed the towel and it settled over the owl. “What do we do now?” he asked.
“Take it to the window and let it go,” I replied.
“My God!” exclaimed my husband. “It weighs almost nothing.”
“Just be careful,” I said.
He gently removed the towel and the tiny owl flew silently into that dark Christmas morning. It was an Eastern Screech-Owl, a species that we had heard many times on our property and had in fact called it in close, on occasion.
But, this story doesn’t end there.
That Christmas night, after we had the kids in bed, we stepped outside on our deck. Just above us in a tree we heard the unmistakeable call of an Eastern Screech-Owl. It was calling to thank us or perhaps to say, “Merry Christmas to and to all a good night!”

Note: The Eastern Screech-Owl pictured is not the same owl featured in this story. This is “Lola,” an educational ambassador at First Landing State Park.