There’s only a few days left until the New Year and less than that until Christmas. It’s funny how the signs of the times shape your views of Holidays. Question: What was the best Christmas ever for you? Was it when you got gifts galore? Was it when you got exactly what you wanted? Were you in love or away for the Holiday? For me, my best Christmas ever was like this.
Me and Mom were very poor; it was only us two, (I’m a product of a broken home). It was very hard on Mom trying to make ends meet; however, for the illustration of this story I’m going to start by letting you know I was about too turn 14 years old at the time which was some 54+ years ago.
Mom doesn’t and never had a good education; she was raised in an era when most women her age who finished high school or not got married. In fact, she was told you don’t waste a college education on a woman because she’s only going to get married and not use it anyway. It was a time when a one income family was the norm, a time when men did the work and were the breadwinners not women. Men worked someplace doing something; pride was not an issue and it never came into play since there were jobs, and many men worked more than one. The United States was a manufacturing Nation but today we don’t manufacture too much of anything so the middleclass is eroding. But here’s me and Mom in Detroit by way of Chicago this year alone on Christmas Eve-eve and with nothing; no tree, gifts, or anything.
Mom made $25 a week in those days and I stocked shelves at a small grocery store. Rent was $100 a month (you do the math); it was tough, real tough. We combined our money to get by but let me get back on point.
It was about 8 o’clock Christmas Eve-eve night when there was a knock on the door. I went to answer it and to my surprise there were some Boy Scouts at the door with a Christmas tree asking if I wanted it. I thought, how nice and how this would please Mom because she was very religious; a born again Christian and heck, it’s Jesus’ birthday we’re celebrating so I yelled, ” Mom some guys are here with a Christmas tree can we have it cause they’re just giving it away?” Well, she said, Okay, so they brought it up, we lived in an upstairs flat, they even set it up. I remember how good it smelled and me and Mom was so happy we could just cry. It was practically impossible to hold back the tears. We thanked the Scouts and they left because they said they had more to do. Me and Mom just stared at that tree as it gradually fell into shape the rest of the night and eventually we falling asleep where we sat.
The next day Christmas Eve, Mom wrapped empty boxes that we saved for something or other with paper bags, (plastic bags were not yet invented so you saved a lot of your paper bags for cleanup and storage), and put them under the tree. That night it began to snow; you could see the flakes through the window, big flakes. It was enough snow to cover the grass and was very pretty. Mom made some hot pet milk with sugar and water that she poured into coffee cups which made a very nice, warm Christmas Eve drink. We felt very blessed and very happy as we raised our cups and said, “Happy birthday Jesus.”
That was the best Christmas I ever had. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody.
Gaidi
