Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas (21 page)

“It's for my mommy. Can you gift wrap a hug?”

Reprinted by permission of Jonny Hawkins. © 2007 Jonny Hawkins.

The Morning Santa Came

A
Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all,
But softly gives itself away;
While quite unselfish, it grows small.

Eva K. Logue

This Christmas was unlike any that I had ever known. The presents were under the tree arrayed in their majestic bows and shimmery wrapping paper. The nativity scene was proudly displayed, showing our tribute to the real meaning of Christmas. The snowmen boasted their presence all around the house. The only thing missing was us.

My husband and I work in a ministry for troubled teenagers. “Troubled” seems like such a nasty word— perhaps I should refrain from that and say, “Searching teenagers!”

Our boss had not spent Christmas with his family in six years, and now with two new grandchildren to celebrate with, it just seemed appropriate that this was the perfect year to spend Christmas away with his family. My husband and I were asked to spend the holiday with the students who could not go home for Christmas. It would be a sacrifice to break all family tradition, but one we were delighted to make.

I was not prepared for what this Christmas would have in store for us. I had already planned out the holiday feast menu and kept a variety of games to play. In the midst of singing Christmas carols, reading the Christmas story, making gingerbread houses, playing games, and feasting like kings, I felt as though there would be little time for
quiet moments.

Every year since I was little, Santa had visited my grandparents' house. I always sat on his lap, and he would give me my present while camera flashes went off everywhere. This year, my special tradition would be broken. It was the first time in twenty-six years I would not sit on
Santa's lap.

I went to bed on Christmas Eve thinking about our students. I began to put faces with stories, and it made me cry. These teenagers were searching for happiness, love, and hope. They were searching for someone to reach out to them—for someone to believe in them. I thought of the ones who had been victims of emotional, sexual, and physical abuse. Of those who had tried so many times to take their own lives. I thought of those who had never known the true meaning of Christmas, and of those who had never heard of the hope that the Savior brings.

I wanted them to wake up Christmas morning with joy and enthusiasm. I pulled something out of a bag that my grandma had given me. It was perfect. It was exactly what I needed to make this Christmas memorable. I ran my fingers over the velvet material, eagerly anticipating my plans.

The next morning couldn't arrive soon enough. I put on the velvet costume. My curly beard was a perfect match for my snow-white wig. I assembled the tray of hot cocoa and cookies and marched my way into the girls' dormitory.

“Ho, Ho, Ho!!!” I exclaimed as I flipped on the lights.

Gasps and laughs were heard throughout the dorm.

“It's Santa!!!” the teenage girls exclaimed.

Camera flashes filled the room. The girls eagerly came and posed for their pictures with Santa—bed heads and all.

The joy on their faces was unforgettable. They sat on the floor and ate their cookies while slowly sipping their hot cocoa.

We swapped Christmas stories, and then I asked, “What was your best Christmas?”

There were a variety of answers, but one answer left me heartbroken. One girl paused and then said, “By far, this one.”

I've thought about those words over and over again. I didn't pass out lavish gifts. No one got amazing presents.

It was the gift given from the heart that had made an impression—the love, the laughter, and the sacrifice.

Jennifer Smith

A Bottle of Cologne
and a Handmade Handkerchief

T
he only gift is a portion of thyself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In 1948, it was our first Christmas in Houston.

My dad had only ever been fifteen miles away from his birthplace—except when he'd run away to join the Army—so he gave Mom an order: “We're going to Texas.“

We left Connecticut in a 1937 Packard with a box of Mars Bars in the backseat to keep my brother, David, and me quiet while our tightly knit family waved a tearful good-bye from the country road that ran in front of our now sold house. The engine “fell out” in Stamford. The gas gauge went belly up in Pennsylvania, and our car coasted to a slow stop across from a huge hobo encampment. I can still see the dozens of fires and hear voices while the boxcar train whizzed past, filling the darkness with a mournful whistle. Dad told us to lock the doors while he walked to the little Pennsylvania Dutch town ahead to get help.

After what seemed like forever, we reached the outskirts of Houston, and my mom bent over double and began to cry. This flat marshland was another world, so different from green Connecticut. The smell of the stockyards gagged us. The belch of the oil refineries made our eyes water. Soon, the inside of the car was a hiccupping, sobbing mess.

Houston then, as now, was a booming town, with oil on its mind. We rented two rooms in the back of a private home. Mom, David, and I slept in the double bed, while Dad slept beside us on a cot. One night, while eating a hurried supper in the closet of our kitchen, we kept cool by sitting in front of the open fridge until the landlord discovered us and threatened to kick us out. In the evening, we wrapped wet washrags around our feet and plastered them on our foreheads just to get a fugitive escape from the unforgiving heat. At that time, there wasn't any refrigerated air, and only rich folks had attic fans. As the months went on, hard times came upon us. Mom got work, which left David and me totally alone. For the first time in our lives, we had no close family, no aunties, no uncles— nobody except each other. At school, the kids made fun of our Yankee accents. We missed the woods, the green fields, the freedom to run, and the peace that comes from belonging to a family.

The weeks rolled into months. Christmas arrived. There was no money for gifts, but David and I found a pretty, almost empty bottle of cologne in a neighbor's trash can and revived it by adding water, bay rum, and a few drops of vanilla flavoring. We thought our concoction smelled divine. I cut an overlarge square out of an old underslip, hemmed it on four sides, and embroidered it with a shaky “G” for George. It was a handkerchief for Dad. David scrubbed it clean and wrapped it. On Christmas Eve, ours were the only two presents under the little tree.

“You probably know already that we have no money for presents,” Dad said with a choking voice. “But I am giving this very valuable two-dollar bill to you, Isabel. And David, I'm giving you your grandfather's pocket watch. Wind it carefully, and on the hour it will play a merry tune.”

Visions of silver-white winter Christmases played in our heads—the huge spruces, all blue and silver, bedecked with candy, standing tall over hoards of presents, and our faraway family we missed unbearably. With an aching heart, I looked at my brother, and we both knew without speaking that it was time to treat our parents as if they had given us the most wonderful things in the world.

“This is a wonderful two-dollar bill,” I said with as much certainty as I could muster. “What a wonderful Christmas!”

David just smiled broadly while he pressed his ear to the chiming watch. We all sat down by the tree, and our parents snuggled us close to them. When Dad opened his gift, it was the only time I ever saw him cry. Mom dabbed her new perfume behind her ears and declared that it smelled like heaven.

She kept that perfume bottle on her dresser for the next forty-eight years, and when I asked her about it years later, she looked at me with a wry twinkle in her eye and stated that it had always kept her in touch with true honesty. We buried Dad with his handkerchief. It was his only request.

Our lives improved. David and I matured, married, and had kids of our own. Many Christmases have come and gone since that one so many years ago, but none has ever matched it in the true spirit of the star in the East—a beacon home to love.

Isabel Bearman Bucher

A Cell-Phone Christmas

A cell phone is not the gift of choice for a woman who hates to talk on the phone. However, one Christmas, my husband, Dan, decided he could not make it through another year without a cell phone, so he thoughtfully bought one for me, too.

I tried to appear enthusiastic, but I'm not one of those people who enjoys phone conversations. As a training specialist at a government agency for twenty-seven years, I often responded to fifty phone calls per day. The last thing I wanted to experience again was the numbing sensation of an earpiece plastered to my ear.

Although my silver cell phone was as sleek and shiny as a new Corvette, it didn't turn me on. I didn't turn it on either, so I received very few calls at first, except from Dan. After a month or so, I began to toy with the phone and cautiously began to build a list of contacts and phone numbers. I followed the instruction guide as best I could, but with limited success.

The directions said to type in the phone number, save it, then push the letters to spell out the name. This sounded simple, but since the letters were in groups of three on the numbered key pad, the correct letter did not always appear on the screen. For instance, when I typed in the name of my son, Chuck, the screen read Achuck. I couldn't figure out how to delete the A, so I left it. Unfortunately, most of the names that ended up in my contact list had similar misspellings.

In the meantime, Dan gave his cell phone more attention than a new puppy. He played with it constantly, investigating every option on the menu. Then he called me to inform me of his latest discovery.

“Brring.”

“Yes?”

“It's me. What are you doing?”

“I'm downstairs working on my column. What are you doing?”

“Oh, I'm upstairs playing with my new phone.”

One day, Dan asked me for the phone number of my brother, Lester, in San Antonio. I told him to check the list of contacts on my cell phone. I knew I had put in Lester's name, although I didn't know what kind of weird spelling it might have.

Dan opened my cell phone, punched the menu button, and scrolled through the list of contacts.

“What kind of gibberish is this?” he said. “These names don't make any sense. Who is Any?”

“That's my friend, Amy.”

“What about ‘cellc'?”

“That's Candie's cell phone.”

“Don't tell me you know someone named Faky.”

“No, that was supposed to say Daly, but I couldn't make the D and L appear.”

“I don't know how you recognize any of these names.

Who is Frocel?”

“You know. Frolio's cell phone.”

“Okay, let me guess. Inha must be Inga, and Kathyc is Kathy's cell phone.”

“You're catching on now.”

“And Maaahele is Michelle?”

“Right.”

“I still can't find your brother, Lester. Wait a minute. Is he listed as Ester?”

“Yep. I couldn't get the L to pop up.”

“This is like reading hieroglyphics. Tell me who mdjjjjj is.”

“Oh, that's Melissa. At least, I got the M on her name.”

“I give up on the next one. It's someone called Rally.”

“That's easy. Rally is Sally.”

Dan shook his head as he handed the cell phone back to me, laughing.

“As long as you can decipher who those names are, I guess it doesn't matter.”

Since that day, I've added numerous other contacts to my phone, some spelled correctly and some spelled creatively.

The cell phone turned out to be a valuable Christmas gift that I've grown to depend on, even if I occasionally tire of its ringing.

Oops, it's ringing right now. Who can it be? Uh huh, I should have known—just another call from my husband Fan.

Judy Lockhart DiGregorio