Twenty Christmases had already gone by. Although I was much too young to remember the first one, several others were special as when I received a Radio Flyer coaster wagon and found a Schwinn bicycle under the tree.
Those memories of lights, tinsel, and colorfully wrapped presents crowded my mind, became a wonderful and timeless blur. Yet, as special and varied as all those previous Christmases had been, none of them prepared me for the 21st one.
The timing could hardly have been worse. Only a dozen weeks before, I had been abruptly lifted from the niceties and comforts of civilian life and plopped down into the highly regulated military life. The unrelenting rigors of basic training weren’t merely asking for the best in me, they were demanding it every waking hour of every day.
When December arrived, my brain began insisting I do the impossible by going in two opposing directions at the same time. One had me looking forward to Christmas as affording temporary relief from the utilitarian drabness. The other caused me to want Christmas to go by as quickly as possible — give me less reason to think about the challenging alien environment in which I found myself.
In the end, however, I didn’t need to resolve that problem. Instead, my Mom did It for me.
What I didn’t know at the time was that my absence was putting my parents through an emotional grinder. Instead of the usual four of us celebrating Christmas at home as we had always done, there would be only three — Mom, Dad, and my sister.
It wasn’t a matter of asking “why us” but rather accepting my absence as being part of what we must give for the privilege of living a life of freedom. Still fresh in our memories were all the sacrifices we as a nation made to finally bring WWII to a close.
From those feelings arose the desire of the three back home to send me a box of goodies to be eaten along with a few small items to make for a more interesting Christmas.
The surprise box arrived the day before Christmas. I was sorely tempted to open it then. Instead, I shoved it under my bunk and didn’t open it until after the Christmas Day feed in the mess hall. So it was mid-afternoon before I chose to be greeted with a seemingly endless assortment of cake, cookies, and candies.
Some of the guys helped me eat some of it, but mainly it was my box and my show. What began as me showing some preferences as to what I ate soon became a matter of consuming everything right down to the last bite; it was just that good.
While that was going on I was imagining what must have been happening back home. By then, the rest of my family would have already unwrapped their presents then driven to my grandparent’s farm to join with aunts, uncles, and cousins in describing the presents they had received and sharing memories of Christmases past.
In the meantime, I decided there was no need for me to go to the mess hall for supper. Instead, I had filled myself with almost all the food that had arrived in that box.
Only after I laid down on my bunk, however, did I fully appreciate the beauty of it all mainly because when it came to wrapping Christmas presents, Mom had no equal. Every piece of paper, ribbon, and label had to be just right. This time, I could easily imagine her adding a few invisible tears.
I immediately thanked those back home for their thoughtfulness. But not until several months later was I able to tell them in person how deeply I appreciated them making my Christmas a little brighter when I needed it most.
As each Christmas passes by, all of us look for a peg on which to hang timeless thoughts about a special Christmas. Just as I have told you mine, so I hope you will share one of yours with someone else.
Here’s wishing you and every other reader of this column a very Merry Christmas!
