This Santa was tall and skinny, his suit was red cotton, and his beard looked scraggly.
Unnerved, and a bit put out as well, I whispered in Mama's ear, “He's not Santa.” I glanced at Santa again to be sure and then added, “The real Santa looks like the Coca-Cola pictures of him in the grocery store.”
A small frown played about Mamma's forehead as she caught Papa's eye and replied, equally quiet, “This is Santa's helper. The real Santa is in his workshop getting everything ready for Christmas.” I looked at her solemnly, accepting her words as I knew I should, despite the small fear of doubt that had crept into my mind.
I turned back to the front of the church and watched as Santa's helper called out names. Kids, hearing their names, raced to the front to get their presents. When he called my sister's name, she almost knocked me off the seat in her rush to get her present. I waited and waited, concerned Santa's helper had some powers after all and had decided I was ineligible for a gift because he knew I knew he wasn't real.
“He doesn't have a present for me,” I lamented as I searched my parents' faces.
Just then, a booming voice called, “Emmarie Turner!”
I caught my breath, jumped down from the seat, and ran to the front. The Santa's helper handed me a Miss America coloring book and a drawstring sack of jacks. Then he gave me a bag filled with an orange, an apple, and ribbon candy. I recognized the ring on Santa's helper's finger, and for a moment stood stock-still. Santa's helper was Mr. Allred, the man who did magic tricks for us kids. I looked up at him in awe. He was the perfect Santa's helper because the kids loved him and he loved kids!
Clutching my presents, I turned and started back down the aisle. For a minute, fright overtook me. I couldn't remember where my family was sitting. Just before panic set in, Mama stepped out into the aisle.
I hurried to her.
She smiled at my loot. “Those are nice presents.”
Grateful to be back with my own family, I looked up into her smiling eyes. “I can color a picture for you.”
Stars filled the sky dome above us as we walked home. Mama held one of my hands; my other hand was busy hugging my presents close to me. When we got home, Papa lit the stove while we shucked our coats. Mama sliced an orange into four pieces. Each of us took a piece and let the sweet juice delight our mouths.
Christmas meant fresh fruit, which was a real treat for us. Santa always gave us fruit and nuts for our Christmas morning gifts. On Christmas Eve, after we ate supper and did the dishes, Papa stepped out to the back porch and Mama struggled with a cardboard box under her bed.
“Girls, close your eyes real tight,” Mama instructed.
Giggling in anticipation, Ludie and I squeezed our eyes and covered our faces with our hands.
“Okay. You can look now,” Mama said.
I gasped with delight as Mama handed me my doll wearing a new pink dress. I recognized the material that was scraps left from my summer Sunday dress. Ludie's doll had a new pink dress, too.
“Thank you, Mama,” Ludie and I cried as we hugged her tightly. Then Papa brought out a table, a small chair, and a larger chair. This furniture, made from wood scraps and extra-heavy cardboard, fit Ludie and me exactly! We could sit and color and play at this table in total comfort.
“This is the best Christmas I've ever had,” I said as I perched on my new chair. I knew that Papa and Mama worked many nights making our presents after we had gone to bed. Hugging my doll, I twirled around the room on the worn rose-patterned linoleum.
“My feet want to dance,” I said. “I'll bet I had the best Christmas of anyone in the whole world!”
Mama's eyes filled with tears. “Yes,” she said, “we are truly blessed.”
That Christmas was Mama's last Christmas.
In August, while cleaning out Mama's dresser drawers, we found — hidden under her gowns — two tissue-wrapped presents with tags: FOR LUDIE, WITH LOVE, MAMA AND FOR EMM ARIE, WITH LOVE, MAMA.
Inside the tissue were two blue doll dresses lovingly made and perfect. Also in the drawer were two boxes of colored lights from an after-Christmas sale. Just as Mama had promised, our next Christmas tree would have lots of lights.
Burnt Toast and Tinsel
BY BARBARA KIFFIN
'Twas the Night Before Christmas in the Year of Our Lord 1932. 'Twas also still very dark as three-year-old me lay nestled, all snug in my bed, dreaming of sugarplums, when — just as dawn was breaking over Greenland — my eight-year-old brother, Rex, the “Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come” crept into my frigid chamber.
“Wake up, Bip,” he whispered. “I heard the reindeer on the roof and Santa Ho-Ho-Hoing, but I waited ere they drove out of sight.” Truly, my brother was steeped in Clement C. Moore. “Wake up,” he shouted into my ear. After another minute, he pleaded again, “Please wake up, Bip.”
Finally, I complied. The hot water bottle had grown cold anyway. As I rubbed my sleepy eyes, Rex dragged my slippers from under the bed and tossed my bathrobe over my head, stuffing my spaghetti arms into the sleeves.
Then, as quietly as we could, we tippy-toed downstairs for breakfast. This stealth grew from the orders laid down by the Queen of the Kitchen and the King of the Forest: Not one present was to be shaken, ripped open, or even touched until both of us had eaten our breakfast.
No doubt, had they not said both, we wouldn't have had our joint adventure; Rex would have gone solo.
For a week, Rex had been in a frenzy of activity, and all day Christmas Eve he was a living itch! Never before was the ritual of the tree performed with such speed. This ritual called for us to leave the Queen of the Kitchen in peace to make cookies. Our role was to help the King of the Forest pick out two of nature's mistakes for transformation into a glorious tree of wondrous symmetry. Every year, our father played one-upmanship with Mother Nature. That's why Mum had dubbed him King of the Forest. And if you'd ever tasted Mum's cookies, you'd know why she was Queen of the Kitchen!
Choosing the tree was the least of it. We knew that even if a cheap tree looked a little scrawny, Daddy would bring it to beauty by the addition of branches God might have forgotten.
Daddy had a method: He bought two cheap trees for less than the price of a respectable one, denuded the skimpier of the two, drilled holes in the trunk of the survivor, and filled in where old Mother Nature had been sloppy. It was amazing; each year he built a whispering pine worthy of last year's tinsel!
Yes, we saved tinsel.
Tinsel, the Christmas tree's thin, glory-long, flexible strips of silver, which, when hung with care, were delicate cascades of icicles, sparkling against the tree's multicolored lights and were the most beautiful things on the tree. Tinsel was a lead product, which accounted for its softness and drape-ability. It's a wonder we weren't all dead by New Year's.
Tinsel was quite beautiful when applied artistically, one strand at a time. Dad removed it at the end of the holiday with the same great care and saved it on the notched cardboard it came on.
Before tinsel ever touched the tree, though, the lights were strung. The lights, too, were magnificent, but these strings of color faded to black if just one bulb was dead. Dependable strings of miniature white lights that stayed on — even if one light was missing — hadn't been invented yet. If the lights passed floor testing, great sighs of relief echoed through the halls of our house. Failure meant we had to unscrew the bulbs, one by one, to weed out the duds and replace them so the whole string would work again. This caused God's rival in forestry to color the air with words it was best children not hear. When, at last, the lights had been carefully wound through Daddy's and God's boughs, the Queen would step into the room to view the masterpiece.
Without fail, the Queen found something amiss. “Oh, Frank,” she murmured, “there are three blue ones in a row.”
Uh, oh! More colored air!
Next came the ornaments, which could be handled only by the King and Queen because they were made of delicate glass — fine and oh-so fragile. Re
x and I stood by and watched in wonder. For the finale, I — the littlest child — was lifted by our frazzled father to place the once-beautiful angel atop the magnificent creation. She was a little tacky and shopworn, but she was my angel and I loved her dearly.
After a hearty meal of Welsh Rarebit, Rex and I were bundled off to bed. I was all tuckered out and asleep in heavenly peace in no time, but my brother, the heir, had trouble coming down from the eight-day trip of anticipation he'd been floating around on. When he shouted that first “Wake up, Bip!” it was four in the morning and dawn was far from breaking over Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey.
Rex wasn't skilled in hand-squeezing oranges, and frozen juice hadn't been invented yet, but he could handle a glass of milk. And he was bold enough to make toast. Toast, in 1932, was bread electrified. Automatic, pop-up toasters hadn't been invented yet, either. Toasters were dangerous, little, A-frame contraptions with flip-down sides. Bread was crisped by naked electric coils at the center, one side at a time. Buttering toast was another challenge. Even when butter was at room temperature, it wasn't much better than the outside temperature.
But, since God helps those who help themselves, Rex helped himself and me to Christmas breakfast. Then Rex helped himself to whatever had his name on it. Thanks to a whimsical mother, tags were signed by Santa, Old Nick, and Sandy Claws.
In perfect clarity, I recall watching Rex tear the paper from an Erector Set, a stamp album, lead soldiers, and the Boys Book of Adventure. But I haven't the faintest memory of what the jolly old elf brought me that Christmas, nor do I recall what the King and Queen thought of our adventure when they awoke. I was still in shock at having been woken when dawn was breaking over Greenland!
A Million Stars Looked Down
BY JEWELL JOHNSON
“Time to get your coats on,” Mom called to my two brothers and me on Christmas Day. “Dad's got the car warmed up.”
White steam billowed from the tailpipe as I tumbled into the backseat with my brothers, Deisel and Gary. We were going to celebrate Christmas Day at Uncle Oscar's farm, something we all enjoyed.
Soon, the prairie where we lived ended and skinny poplar trees and scrubby bushes dotted the snow-covered land. “We're in brush country now,” Dad said, letting us know we'd passed the first leg of the journey. For the next half hour, we traveled down a bumpy, gravel road.
Suddenly, Mom pointed to a figure in the distance. “There's Oscar waiting for us!”
I knew by the sound of her voice that she was smiling, and I smiled, too, as I craned my neck to see my uncle. He wore a fur cap, the collar of his thick coat buttoned up to his chin. We hadn't seen him in a long time, and it felt good just to see him standing there beside a big sleigh pulled by two brown horses with long white manes.
“Goddog!” Uncle Oscar called as Dad opened the car door. That means “good day” in Swedish, which is the language Dad and Uncle Oscar had learned to speak as children.
High snowdrifts blocked the road to Uncle's farm, so we always left our car on the highway and rode to the farm on the sleigh. In my mind, the snowdrifts were part of the magic of the season; without them, we might not have gotten a wonderful sleigh ride.
“Duck your heads!” Uncle said as he spread the buffalo robe over Mom, my brothers, and me. “This will keep out the cold wind.” Then, turning to Dad, he added, “John, you ride up front with me.”
From beneath the warm robe, we heard Uncle yelp, “Gid up!” The horses' harnesses jingled merrily, the sleigh jerked, and we glided over the snow. My mind raced ahead to the farmhouse where my cousins would be creating a wonderful meal, and my heart sang in rhythm with the horses' feet as we effortlessly sped across the wide-open spaces.
Almost too soon, I heard Uncle yell, “Whoa!” and felt the sleigh stop beside Uncle Oscar's small white house nestled among poplar trees and brush. When Dad pulled off the buffalo robe, my brothers and I popped out like gophers ready for whatever the holiday would bring. Mom laughed at our rosy faces — pink from the heat we had created and shared beneath the robe, not angry red like the faces of our father and Uncle Oscar, who had braved the biting wind.
“Come in! Come in!” Cousin Helen called from the porch, practically jigging in anticipation as she wiped her hands on her pink and green apron. The smell of turkey and sage wafted through the open door as we hurried inside.
“Get close to the stove to warm up,” Helen advised, allowing us to spread our cold hands over the black kitchen range.
Uncle Oscar hung his hat up and turned to Dad. “It must have been twenty below zero this morning.” Dad nodded as they stomped the snow from their overshoes. We children exchanged a knowing look and shared a quiet giggle. The men were so predictable! They always talked about the weather whenever they were together.
Within minutes of our arrival, Cousin Florence was placing a mail-order catalog on a chair for little Gary to sit on and calling everyone to dinner. Deisel and I sat on the piano bench.
Everything was delicious, and we all ate our fill. Later, while the ladies washed the dishes, the men went into the parlor and Uncle set up a game of chess. He and Dad sat close to the potbellied stove for the rest of the afternoon, challenging one another.
We children anxiously raced to the kitchen as soon as Florence called to say the table was cleared and it was time to play checkers. After checkers, we played prize bingo. I won a yellow pencil and Gary won a jigsaw puzzle.
At dusk, Florence took the glass chimney off the kerosene lamp, lit the wick, and set it back down on the table. A soft yellow glow filled the kitchen as we snacked on apple salad, cold turkey, and rolls, before it was time to go.
Reluctantly, we bundled up into coats and boots, and headed back outside. I loved coming to visit Uncle Oscar and his family as much as I hated leaving. But I knew one more secret bit of magic awaited me outside in the dark. Because the wind had died down, we no longer needed the buffalo robe, and this time I could see the stars.
The sleigh runners squeaked on the hard snow, the horses' harnesses jingled, and I gazed into the sky. There were stars so near it seemed I could touch them, and stars so far away they were only dots in the sky.
“One, two, three, four,” I counted.
“You can't count them all,” my older and wiser brother said.
“I can too,” I replied. “Five, six, seven …” When I got to fifty, I stopped. Deisel was right — there were too many stars to count. And every one of them was beautiful.
At the main road, the horses stopped and we quietly jumped off the sleigh.
“Thank you for the ride, Uncle,” I said, and reached out to shake his hand. He smiled as he grasped my hand, then he looked at Dad.
“Thanks a million,” Dad said in Swedish. Uncle Oscar nodded.
My brothers and I snuggled together in the backseat of the car as Dad roared the motor to life. When the car jerked forward, I peered up at the stars one more time and thought about Dad's parting words to his brother.
Snuggling closer to Deisel and Gary, I whispered, “I like everything about Christmas Day at Uncle Oscar's. Best of all, I like the sleigh ride in the night when a million stars look down on me.”
Boy to the World!
BY CAROLINE B. POSER
“How was your weekend?” Kathy, my son Griffin's daycare office manager, asked.
“Oh,” I sighed. “Not that great.” It was first thing Monday morning and I was dropping off my youngest. I had just left my older two boys, Mark and Daniel, at school.
Kathy raised her eyebrows.
I offered her a lopsided grin. “My children are like a small band of monkeys,” I said, picturing my three sons, all under the age of six.
“Oh, well … it's that time of year,” she added.
“I suppose …” I said, not quite believing my words.
I was still recovering from the second weekend in Advent and prayed things would get better, not worse, as the holiday season approached. I had already arranged my work schedule an
d decreased my commitments in an effort to implement all the traditions I remembered from my own childhood, and I planned to enjoy the holiday season. But, so far, that wasn't happening.
I had envisioned the kids and I putting up the tree and decorating it during Thanksgiving weekend while listening to Christmas music. Then, over the course of the next several weeks, we'd bake cookies, make peppermint bark, and bake other goodies together, including the customary gingerbread houses. We'd talk about the birth of Jesus while we set up our nativity scene under the tree. We'd watch Christmas movies, make wish lists for Santa, and observe Advent every Sunday. That meant I'd have to plan a lesson and an activity and a treat, but that would be okay. After all, I was only working four-day weeks in December. I figured we could count down the days with our Advent calendar. I thought it would be fun. Yeah, right.
What it was really like in my house was far from the pleasant scene from a Norman Rockwell painting I had envisioned. Instead … I put up the tree. The boys lost interest in decorating it after hanging a few ornaments each, at which point they proceeded to use them as missiles and other weapons. A couple of weeks later, our tree's ornaments remained on the top half only — as does the tree of any family with an eighteen-month-old toddler. (Though, one day, I did find a pair of dirty socks draped across one of the lower branches.)
The boys would rather have watched superhero cartoon reruns than any of my favorite Christmas specials, like Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman. I insisted that if they were to watch superhero cartoons, they'd have to do it upstairs and without me. They went gladly … so much for togetherness.
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