A Christmas To Remember

The holiday season brings back memories of a Christmas long ago. Christmas at our house was pretty much the same every year. We went to the nearby woods and carefully selected a "special pine tree" for our Christmas tree. Lou, Ben Russell and I decorated it with beautiful ornaments that we made by hand. We strung popcorn and made chains to go around the tree. We also made paper lanterns and colored them with crayons. We saved the silver colored paper from our Dad's "Lucky Strike" cigarette packs to make a silver star for the tree topper. We also gathered pine cones and put them on the tree. There wasn't any electricity in our area so we didn't have lights on our tree. Our Christmas tree was special with it's homemade ornaments but the love and friendship that we shared with our family and neighbors is what really made our Christmas' special. And Mama made sure that we never forgot that it was Christ's birthday.

Uncle Logan and Aunt Addie, Mama's brother and his wife, lived in Florida. Every year around Christmas time, they always sent us a crate of fresh oranges. I always figured that's where the oranges came from that "Santa" stuffed into our shoes. Sometimes that's all that he had to leave us. Other times he left rag dolls for Lou and me. Ben and Russell (our brothers) might get a pocket knife, marbles or a slingshot. Sometimes he left hard candy for us. No one else in our neighborhood got much more than that either.

One Christmas Eve, when I was about seven years old, I became very ill with the whooping cough and had to stay in bed for a very long time. I hated being sick and not being able to help Daddy gather driftwood from the river banks, because that was our "special time" together. I was sad because I couldn't go with him that morning. I was hoping that Santa would bring me a pair of red gloves this year so my hands wouldn't get so cold when I went with Daddy to gather firewood. The socks that I wore on my hands didn't keep my hands very warm, especially when they got wet. I got out of bed and went to the window to watch for Daddy to come back from the river. The river was frozen over and I worried that he might fall through the ice trying to get the driftwood. As I wiped the cold frost from inside the window and pressed my nose against the cold frosty window pane, I saw a shimmering wonderland of white. Sometime during the evening God had dressed the earth in a cool silvery white. The crystal icicles on the trees shimmered in the twilight. Mama always said when it snowed that the "angels must be pillow fighting again." I was thrilled to see the snow, because I thought Santa could get around better with his reindeer and sleigh. Maybe he would make it to our house this Christmas and I'd get my gloves after all!

Just as I was about to turn away from the window I saw Daddy coming from the river with a load of wood. He laid the wood down on the porch and came into the house. He was grinning from ear to ear and holding something in his hands behind his back. I said "Daddy what do you have in your hands?" He said, "Guess who I saw on the river?" I couldn't imagine who would be out there on such a cold snowy evening. Daddy pulled a pair of brand new red gloves from his back pocket and said "Santa said to give these to you." Of course for a long time I really believed Santa did send them to me.

We never did find out where those gloves came from. There weren't any neighbors living close enough to have left them there.

 

—Detta Davis