Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas (11 page)

There was no deep snow, no cold wind, no ice, nor sagging, cracking trees. Violets were blooming, and birds were singing, and I walked on apple blossoms. Home to Christmas, bought with six brown eggs—and some help from Leo Munson.

Jennie Spencer Baty

The Treasured Gifts
Come Without Ribbons or Bows

P
eace on Earth will come to stay, when
we live Christmas every day.

Helen Steiner Rice

“Sometimes the best gifts comewithout ribbons or bows,” Grandma always told us before telling us this favorite family story.

It was 1918, and Grandpa had gone to work paving the roadways and laying railroad tracks in the city while Grandma was working part-time in the canneries. When Papa came home from work, he'd eat a hurried supper and then rush off to night school to get his education. After Grandpa graduated and attained his American citizenship, he went to work full-time on the cannery lines and part-time in a shoe-repair shop. He labored on the night shift so that his days would be free to take care of the children, thereby allowing Grandma to attend school and receive an education.

Grandma anticipated her first day of school in America. The day of her first class was a very important moment in her young life. She knew that she needed an education to become a good citizen of her new country.

On the morning of her first class, Grandma excitedly rushed to dress for school. Though she didn't have much of a wardrobe, what she did own was clean and well-pressed. As she slipped her feet into her best pair of long black stockings, Grandma's happy mood dissolved into somber sadness as she discovered her only pair of black stockings riddled with gaping holes.

“Forget about your socks, Mama. You haven't time to mend them now,” urged Grandpa. “You'll be late for class. And, anyway, I have a surprise for you!”

A moment later, Grandpa handed Grandma her old high-button shoes. Only now she hardly recognized her old shoes—they gleamed with brand-new leather soles and shiny black laces. She could see her reflection in their brilliant shine. While she had slept that night, Grandpa secretly worked until the wee hours to repair Grandma's old high-button shoes.

Grandma's eyes welled with tears of gratitude as she placed a kiss on her husband's cheek. “I will look like a fine lady in these wonderful shoes, Papa,” she said.

“Hurry now, Mama, hurry. Slip your feet inside these beautiful shoes, and no one will ever suspect you have holey stockings. It will be our little secret,” Grandpa promised.

Grandma had no time now to mend her tattered stockings. So, she did as her husband suggested and slipped her stockinged feet into her high-button shoes. She quickly laced them up and rushed out the doorway, pausing only a moment for Grandpa to kiss her good-bye and hand her two one-dollar bills for her classroom tuition.

Arriving at school that morning, Grandma felt uneasy in a classroom filled with strangers. Standing at the head of the class was a stern-looking teacher by the name of Miss Peabody. In her hand she held a long, ominous-looking pointer stick, which she used both for pointing and intimidation.

That morning, Miss Peabody passed a large empty bowl around the classroom and instructed each student to drop the tuition fees into the container. Every student complied. One of the more affluent students paid his fee with a bright two-dollar gold piece.

After collecting all the money, the teacher placed the bowl on her desk. Later that afternoon, when Miss Peabody tallied up the tuition money, she discovered the gold coin was missing. Convinced that one of her students took the gold piece, she demanded that everyone in the classroom empty their pockets on her desk. The students promptly obeyed, but no gold coin appeared.

Angry and frustrated, the teacher took her search one step farther and demanded that everyone in the classroom remove his or her shoes. A small gold coin could easily hide in the rim of a high-button shoe.

One by one, the students removed their shoes—everyone, that is, except Grandma. She sat there frozen with embarrassment, hoping and praying the missing coin would turn up before she had to slip off her shoes. But a few minutes later, when the coin failed to appear, Miss Peabody pointed her stick directly at Grandma's shoes and demanded she remove them.

For what seemed like an eternity, the entire classroom stared down at Grandma's feet. Grandma, who had been so proud of her elegant shoes, just couldn't remove them now in front of her peers and expose her holey stockings.

To do so would be a great disgrace.

Grandma's reluctance to remove her shoes convinced the teacher of her guilt. Miss Peabody marched Grandma off to the principal's office. Grandma, in tears, immediately telephoned Grandpa, who rushed down to the school. Grandpa explained to the principal why his wife was reluctant to remove her shoes.

The understanding principal then allowed Grandma to remove her shoes in the privacy of his office. He soon discovered the only thing Grandma was hiding was a pair of unsightly, tattered stockings.

Grandma returned to her classroom, but all that day a shadow of suspicion hung over her.

Late that afternoon, just before the dismissal bell, Grandma was completely exonerated of any wrongdoing.

When her teacher, Miss Peabody, raised her right arm to write the class assignment on the blackboard, the missing coin fell from the cuff of her sleeve and rolled across the room in plain view of the entire classroom. Earlier that day, when the teacher had counted up the money, the stiffly starched cuff of her dress had accidentally scooped up the small coin.

That afternoon, when Grandma returned home from school, Papa was waiting for her on the front porch swing.

Exhausted from his night job, he was quietly napping.

Cradled in his hardworking hands was Grandma's darning basket. Inside the basket were all of Grandma's old stockings that Grandpa had carefully and lovingly mended.

In later years, Grandpa prospered as a a successful businessman. He took special pride in giving his wife stockings made from the finest silks and woolens. Though Grandma appreciated these fine gifts, she often said they were never so dear to her, or so well loved, as those old tattered stockings, so lovingly mended by her husband's calloused, hardworking hands.

Cookie Curci

Papa's Radio

F
rom home to home, and
heart to heart, from one place to another.
The warmth and joy of Christmas
brings us closer to each other.

Emily Matthews

As a young Italian-American, my childhood was filled with stories that boasted colorful characters, lively dialogue, and wonderful settings. But, best of all, each story taught me a valuable lesson. Children's storybooks, you say? No. Although I did my share of reading fanciful, illustrated fairy tales and nursery rhymes, the stories that filled my childhood were not written down. They were spoken.

Night after night, as I lay in bed with a soft, hand-stitched quilt drawn up under my chin, I listened in the dark as my mother, my father, a grandparent, a visiting uncle, or an older cousin would fill the nighttime silence with stories of life in the old country—Italy. Or even tell stories of life in the new country—America.

I loved these family tales. Each one gave me a clearer picture of my ancestors or a better understanding of the relatives I already knew. One of my favorite nighttime stories was of Grandpa and his beloved radio, and how it helped him learn the real meaning of friendship.

Papa Vincenzo nestled comfortably into his rocker and, with a twist of his hand, clicked on the dial of his brand-new RCA Victor radio. It was Papa's habit each night, after one of Mama Saveria's robust Italian meals, to position himself by his beloved radio and tune in the nightly antics of radio characters: “Fibber McGee and Molly,” “Amos 'n Andy,” “Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy,” and “The Lone Ranger.”

There were no complexities to Papa Vincenzo's lifestyle; his needs were easily satisfied by a good meal, a warm home, and a loving family. He lived his life by the simple and old-fashioned creed: “Pray for the things you want; work for the things you need.”

If Papa had one luxury, it was the acquisition of a household radio. The radio had become a vital component of his daily life. It restored his energy and brought back his sense of humor after a long workday in the fruit orchards of the Santa Clara Valley. With the impending arrival of World War II, the economy had begun to tighten, but my budget-wise Grandpa had managed to scrimp and save enough money from his meager earnings as a tree pruner to purchase the new radio. Although Papa had known poverty in the Old Country, he felt he'd never been poor, only broke. Being poor, Papa believed, was a state of mind; being broke was only a temporary situation.

Papa loved his new radio, but Grandma preferred listening to her old Victrola or puttering around her wood stove to sitting by the radio—until the day she heard her first episode of “One Man's Family” on NBC radio. From that moment on, she was an ardent fan of the new media.

In time, Grandma came to believe the radio had been sent to them as a blessing. It helped both her and Papa Vincenzo to learn better English, and it boosted their social life as well. The radio gave them a common topic to discuss with their neighbors, who also listened nightly to the same radio programs.

On warm summer nights, Papa's neighborhood cronies, Mr. Goldstein, Mr. Miller, and Mr. Rosenberg, sat with Papa on his front stoop, discussing their favorite radio programs. There were times when Mr. Goldstein explained the meaning of a certain Yiddish word Papa had heard on the “Molly Goldberg Show.” Other times, Papa translated a Puccini opera for Mr. Goldstein. Some nights, the old friends had a good laugh at the expense of the contestants on “Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour.” The radio helped to bond these old friends, who came from vastly different backgrounds, in a way few things could.

The men had left their Old Country to escape tyranny and oppression, and as young immigrants they had settled into the neighborhood together. Although they came from varied parts of the world and followed different religious beliefs, the old friends shared a love for their new country and family traditions.

And so their friendship grew—until that fateful December day in 1941, when Papa's radio brought him the terrible news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. He would hear President Roosevelt declare war with Japan and the Axis powers, Germany and Italy. It was a declaration of war that changed Papa's life.

The knock on Papa's door came early that December morning in 1941. It brought with it a special-delivery letter from the government of the United States declaring that Papa must surrender all radios on his premises—effective immediately!

Papa Vincenzo had no political ties to his former country.

He had worked and lived in America for more than thirty years and raised his children and grandchildren as honest, hardworking American citizens. But the fact remained that he was a native of Italy, a country now ruled by the fascist tyrant Benito Mussolini, who chose to side with the Axis powers against the United States.

As Papa read the dispatch, tears of indignation rolled down his face. Losing his radio would be sad enough, but Papa was more concerned that he might lose the company and respect of his friends in the community, which he had earned for more than thirty years.

More than anything else, Papa prided himself on his honest and high moral character. He was a man of his word. Now he feared that a war thousands of miles away had cast a shadow of aspersions over him. It appeared Papa's fears were well-founded; some of his employers, leery of Italian aliens, started canceling their job offers.

Papa worried that his longtime friendship with the Goldsteins, the Rosenbergs, and the Millers was also in jeopardy. Would they also view him differently now?

Could they somehow believe he shared the same political views and beliefs as the terrible tyrant Mussolini?

That Christmas Eve, in 1941, Papa and Grandma sat quietly in their favorite chairs, warming themselves by the fire. Papa couldn't help but miss the raucous sounds of his radio, and the daily banter with his friends and neighbors, which he feared he had now lost.

A knock on the door brought Papa quickly to his feet.

He approached his front door with trepidation. Opening the door, Papa was relieved and surprised to find the warm familiar faces of his old pals standing on his front stoop.

Mr. Goldstein was the first to speak up. “Vincenzo, my friend, the United States government says that you can no longer own a radio. Is this correct?”

Wearing a quizzical expression on his face, Papa answered, “Yes—yes, this is so.”

“But the government did not forbid you should listen to the radio, correct?” inquired Mr. Rosenberg.

“Correct,” Papa repeated.

Papa's neighbors handed him a sheet of paper, on which was written a handwritten time schedule listing all of his favorite radio programs. Each program and time corresponded with a neighbor's address. His old pals had gotten together and worked out a radio listening schedule for Papa and Grandma that included every show from “The Goldbergs” to “Little Orphan Annie.”