Christmas Through a Child's Eyes (14 page)

BY KATHLEEN M. MULDOON

“H
urry, Gran,” I urged, as my grandmother followed me off the rickety elevator and into the basement of our apartment building.

It was the first Sunday in Advent and time to retrieve the Baby Jesus bed from our storage bin. I'd always felt unsafe in the musty cellar, but today, now that I was ten, I felt braver as we wound through the maze of chicken-wire enclosures that held the tenants' surplus belongings. Finally, we reached the bin marked 8B.

As Gran turned the key in the padlock, I noticed something strange. A hole had been cut in the chicken wire on one side of our bin, and it looked as though stuff had been pulled from some of our boxes. I pointed it out to Gran.

“Why, honey, we've got nothing anyone would want,” Gran said.

She grunted as she pulled open the warped doorframe and we stepped inside. It soon became apparent that someone had at least thought they wanted our stuff, because sure enough, several items were missing. Among them was the cardboard box that held our meager Christmas decorations, including the miniature wooden manger I called the Baby Jesus bed.

The first Christmas I remember seeing it was in 1952, the year I turned five. Gran had brought it and a Jesus figurine with her from Ireland when she'd immigrated to the United States during the Great Depression. As had been her family tradition, she taught me that the amount of straw that would fill the little manger depended on my behavior during Advent. My good deeds and good school grades earned ten pieces of straw each, which I placed in the manger every night. On Christmas Eve, I solemnly placed the Infant statue atop the straw. Some Christmases, I'm sorry to say, Jesus had a mighty slim mattress.

“Look!” Gran cried.

On the floor, where the ornament box had been stored, was the statue of the infant Jesus. The fall had broken off one leg, which lay beside it.

“It's a miracle,” Gran whispered as she reached down reverently to pick up the statue. “It must have fallen out of the box when the thief pulled it through the hole.”

Cradling the Baby Jesus in her apron, we rode the elevator back up to our flat. Gran seemed delighted to have found the statue, but I was furious. How dare someone steal our box? More importantly, where would the Infant lay His head? I felt as though our whole Christmas was ruined. Not only had the thieves stolen Jesus's bed, our Christmas ornament box had also held the bag of straw we used every year.

After Gran glued the statue back together and put it on a towel to dry, she emptied the cardboard box that held wooden matches to light the burners on our stove.

“This will do for our manger,” she said.

“But what about the straw?” I whined.

Gran grabbed shears and trimmed pieces of straw from our whisk broom and handed them to me.

“These will do,” she said.

Suddenly, I couldn't hold back my tears. The pretty Baby Jesus bed had been made by my great-grandfather. I'd never met him, but Gran had often told me the story of how he whittled it himself. The matchbox with “Diamond” printed on the side hardly seemed a suitable replacement for Jesus.

Gran hugged me. “Hush now, you know it upsets your mother when you cry.”

I looked at my mother, sitting in the same chair she always sat in. She looked like a statue herself, her eyes vacant and staring. I'd never known her to be well. She was just “Mom,” who Gran and I dressed, fed, and led to her chair each day. I almost wished my crying would upset her so she'd seem more like a real person to me.

Angrily, I swiped at my tears and leaped up. “I'm going to write a letter,” I announced. “I'm going to ask the thief to bring back the Baby Jesus bed.”

Gran shook her head. “Folks who steal don't care about making things right,” she said.

But I wrote my letter anyway. I don't remember the exact words I printed on that paper, but I remember how I addressed it. “To the person who stole the Christmas box from 8B.” In a sentence or two, I explained about the Baby Jesus bed and how important it was for our Christmas. Then I got the building manager to let me tape my letter by the mailboxes in the lobby.

Slowly, the days of Advent passed. Each night, I dutifully placed my pieces of straw in the matchbox, but my heart wasn't in it. I tried to sound cheerful when I read our Christmas cards to Mom, but the loss of the Jesus bed had changed the way I looked at the holiday. Gran, too, was only going through the motions as she baked her shamrock cookies for neighbors, the mailman, and the milkman. This Christmas just wasn't the same without our Baby Jesus bed in the center of the kitchen table, awaiting the reception of the statue on Christmas Eve.

By the time Christmas approached, the matchbox was bursting with straw. On the night before Christmas, Gran pre pared our usual Christmas Eve soup, and the smell of gingerbread filled our apartment. I had just led Mom to the kitchen table when I thought I heard something brush against our apartment door. Gran heard it, too.

“Go and see,” she said. “Don't take the chain off, though.”

I went to the door, stood on my tiptoes, and peered through the peephole. I didn't see anyone in the hallway. Cautiously, I opened the door as much as the security chain allowed. I still didn't see anyone. I was about to close the door when I noticed a paper sack on the floor. It had “8B” written on it in pencil. I grabbed it and pulled it inside.

“It's for us!” I said. “Should I look inside?”

“Better let me,” Gran said as she pinned a towel around Mom's neck.

Gran took off the tape that held the bag shut and gasped. With a shaking hand, she pulled out our Baby Jesus bed! A tear trickled down her face. Even Mom seemed to notice that something very special was happening. Gran searched further in the bag and found a piece of paper. It was the note I'd taped to the wall downstairs. On it, someone had written the words “I'M SORRY.”

After we ate supper, Gran helped me transfer the straw from the matchbox to the little wooden manger. After I had lifted the Baby Jesus statue and carefully placed it on the straw, Gran, Mom, and I held hands. Gran offered a prayer of thanksgiving, both for the birth of our Savior and for the return of the manger, that, for us, symbolized His coming. When I opened my eyes again, I saw a tiny smile on Mom's face. Happiness from that little smile spilled from her into me, and I knew this would be the best Christmas of my life. And it was.

BY BARBARA JEANNE FISHER

T
he trouble with some of us is that we have been inoculated with small doses of commercialized Christmas, with presents and Santa and monetary treasures, and that keeps us from catching the “real thing.” Perhaps I was even a little bit that way, until one winter evening, when my husband and I decided to take our grandchildren down to our cabin in the woods for an evening of preseason fun together.

Sitting on a giant rug, surrounded by children, I read them the traditional story of Christmas. I told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem. I explained to them that finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where Baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger. Throughout the story, the children sat in amazement, trying to grasp every word.

When I finished reading the story, the children asked questions while we drank hot chocolate and ate frosted Christmas cookies. When they finished eating, I gave them each several pieces of construction material to make a crude manger. I instructed them to think about Baby Jesus and the first Christmas, and make a nativity scene from the items they were given.

The children were so creative! Following my simple instructions, they began tearing the paper and carefully laying strips of it in the manger for straw. Small squares of flannel were used as a blanket for Baby Jesus. A doll-like baby was cut from tan felt.

All went well, until I got to the table where little six-year-old Brianna sat. I knew she was going through a hard time understanding life and the harshness that oftentimes accompanies it, because several times she had mentioned her friend Brian's sadness over his parent's divorce. She talked of little else these days. Today, as I looked at her sweet innocent face, I saw the sadness still mirrored there.

Looking down at the table, I was surprised to see two infants in the manger.

“Does Jesus have a friend in the manager with Him today?” I asked.

Crossing her little arms stubbornly, Brianna looked at her completed manger scene and very seriously began to explain. For such a young child, who had only heard the Christmas story a few times, she related the happenings accurately — until she came to the part where Mary put Baby Jesus in the manger. Then Brianna started to ad lib. She made up her own ending to the story.

“… and when Mary laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at my friend Brian, and asked him if he had a place to stay,” Brianna explained carefully. “He told Jesus that his mommy and daddy had just gotten a divorce and were fighting over who would get to keep him, and so he didn't have any place to live. Then Jesus told Brian that he could stay with Him. But he told Jesus that he couldn't, because he didn't have a gift to give Him like everybody else did.

“Brian wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so he thought and thought about what he could use for a gift. He knew it was cold in the manger, so he figured if maybe he could keep Jesus warm, then that would be a good gift.

“Brian said, ‘If I lay real close to you so you are not cold, will that be a good enough gift?'

“Jesus smiled. He said, ‘If you keep me warm, that will be the best gift anybody ever gave me.' So, Brian climbed up into the manger and cuddled close to Jesus, who told him he could stay with Him — for always.”

As little Brianna finished her story, her eyes brimmed full of tears, then splashed down her little cheeks. “Grandma, isn't that great? My friend Brian found someone who would never abandon nor abuse him again, someone who would stay with him — FOR ALWAYS!”

I nodded and held Brianna close. No words were necessary. Through the innocent eyes of childhood, not only had Brianna already found the “real thing” nestled in and amongst the gifts and presents and commercialization of Christmas, she had also figured out how to share it.

BY ANN HITE

I
f a family photo existed from the Christmas of 1968, it would have captured a time and place I can only return to in my mind. The picture would be black and white and crinkled around the edges. Mom, in her bright red sweater, blonde hair curled around her face, would watch Dad and me with a nervous smile. I'd be dressed in the glorious red, green, and black plaid jumper Mom had made me that season. Dad, solid and dependable, standing behind us dressed in his military fatigues, would wear a stern look. But, at the last minute, just as the camera clicked, a half smile would appear.

Two days before that Christmas Eve, Dad had watched the morning news. He had stared at the black and white twenty-five-inch screen — the best in the neighborhood — as if he were already part of the jungle scenes. There were young soldiers carrying guns and wearing helmets, smoking cigarettes, and grinning into the camera — part of the televised war taking place in Vietnam, and it all panned out before him. This morning, however, he wasn't watching the television. Instead, he was huffing around like maybe he hadn't used his best judgment.

Mom had somehow talked Dad into taking me with him that morning.

As we tamped in snow high enough to slide inside my tall boots, I insisted the air smelled like icicles. Dad said there was no such odor, but I was sure I detected a clean, faintly sweet fragrance that only icicles could give. I never uttered a word about my cold feet, even as my toes began to tingle.

Our mission: search out the perfect tree and bring it home.

Dad, a lifer in the Air Force, worked at all tasks with the same dogged determination as he must have used marching to the front during World War II. And now, as we hunted for the perfect tree, it was as if we were stationed in Germany on his second tour of duty, for that was the way Dad approached all things.

The woods were dense, but bright due to the snow that coated everything with pure light. I imagined the ice crystals falling from the higher branches were fairies dancing to music of their own. I joined in their dance, a ballerina twirling and leaping, until Dad turned and glared at me.

“Quiet.” He spoke in a loud whisper as he pointed in front of us.

The tree, the best tree ever, sat in a clearing, as if the other trees had stepped back to give her — I knew it was a girl — room to grow round and full, thick with short needles. She was shorter than all the other trees, which only made her more appealing, especially to a Christmas tree hunter like my dad.

I pointed to the branches where the snow had settled in clumps. “Can't we take her home just like this?” I wished aloud.

Dad made the sound he always made when he thought I had silly thoughts in my head. He mumbled under his breath as he circled the tree, leaving large footprints in the snow. I followed, placing my boots into each print. When he stopped, I ran into his back.

He turned with a frown on his face. “Careful.”

He held the bow saw in one hand and studied his prize with serious concentration, like a master builder about to choose his first cut. After much chin rubbing and muttering, he squatted for a long look. After what seemed like an eternity, he cut into the tree trunk. I swore I heard a sigh of pain, a sadness released into the air. When I told him this, he shook his head.

“Ann,” he said sternly, “you have your head full of dreams.” Somehow, his voice remained soft and firm at the same time.

He made a clean cut through the bark, sawing with a speed that caused tiny pieces of wood to fly. I turned my head and thought instead of strands of lights and strings of popcorn.

In great detail, I described the decorations I would hang on this special tree: glass ornaments handed down from one generation to another, the blue beads, and the red-haired angel with golden wings. “She protects us,” I explained.

My comment brought a half smile that smoothed the lines around Dad's mouth.

His combat boots trudged off, leading his tall frame away from the attack scene. The tree dragged behind him, clearing a path through the forest, which I felt privileged to step into.

As we continued on our mission, each tree became a hiding place for the enemy, and I instructed Dad to keep low so their fire wouldn't hit us or damage our prize, the perfect Christmas tree. We snaked our way through the woods, one careful step at a time, back into the bright daylight of another world, our world, if only for a while.

We tugged the tree, hands touching, through the snow, past the silent deserted playground, now covered with a blanket of white.

The sun rode the sky with little warmth, but still the icicles began to fade, one drip at a time. My feet had gone numb long before this business of dragging the tree home, and now clumsiness set in as we worked our way down the hill toward our yard. We left the tree outside the backdoor and entered the warm steamy house, the aroma of banana bread reminding me how hungry I was. Mother looked up from the piecrust she was rolling. I hoped it would be a pumpkin pie.

As I watched her look at Dad, I knew this would be the perfect Christmas, this last Christmas before Dad received his tour in Vietnam. Oh, there would be time again — after Dad returned home safely — for more Christmas tree hunting missions, but I knew nothing would ever be as magical as this year's Christmas tree hunt had been. And nothing ever was.