Christmas Through a Child's Eyes (5 page)

BY BESS ANTISDALE

I
clutched Annie, my Christmas baby doll, close to my heart and followed Mother down the long, cold hospital corridor. I already knew what I was going to do when I reached the hospital room where my cousin rested, which is why the pit of my stomach gurgled in objection. Mother had said so often, “When you give a part of yourself, expecting nothing in return, you'll know you have truly given a gift of love.”

I knew what I would be doing would be a gift of love, so why was I so anxious?

Maybe it was because Annie and I were inseparable. I had waited so long for this delightfully soft dolly with a delicate, hand-painted porcelain head. Up until now, my doll family had looked like old-fashioned orphan children. Their bedraggled clothes hung loosely with missing buttons and faded colors. Most of my dolls were hand-me-downs from my older cousins. They were my family now, though, and I loved each one of them, and each one of them had been through a lot with me.

But Annie, my new doll, was extra special. She had been a dream come true the Christmas I turned six. I'd found her under the tree on Christmas morning in her pale pink dress, decorated with tiny, deeper-pink rosebuds along the collar, looking like a princess perched among the assortment of decorated gifts. I could tell by the way she looked at me that she had been waiting anxiously all night for me to pick her up in my arms and love her.

What must she think of me now that I had decided to give her away?

Very quickly, we had become the closest of friends. I didn't have a sister, so it was Annie who listened to my secrets. And she never teased me like my brothers did.

I lagged behind Mother, dragging my feet, aching with every step I took. My heart wanted to do the kind thing, but I struggled with the reality of my decision. It seemed as if time had slowed to a crawl as we moved down the hallway, past the patients in room after room. We finally walked into a starchy-white hospital room, and looked in at my cousin.

Edith had never been my favorite relative. In my opinion, she was always too bossy when we played together, and she always had much fancier things than the playthings and clothing I owned. Perhaps I was a little jealous; but today, following surgery, Edith looked pale and weak lying on the sterile white sheets and I felt sorry for her. I really did want to cheer her up.

Slowly, I removed Annie's soft, pink blanket. For a moment, I hesitated. Annie had been mine to hold for a short while, but she had already become so important to me. I wondered if she'd miss me.
Would she like Edith? Would she like Edith better than she had liked me?

Mother stood near the end of the bed, her lips pursed as she watched.

“Here, Edith,” I said as I moved in closer to the metal guard rails on the sides of her bed. “I want you to have Annie.”

Edith struggled to sit up. Her eyes grew large as she looked at Annie. Then she reached out, ever so gently, and took my most prized possession.

“Oh, thank you so much,” she said, her dull eyes sparkling again as she stroked the soft folds of Annie's pink dress. “

I'll take good care of her.”I hoped so. I knew that she had recently dropped and broken her own porcelain doll, which was very similar to Annie. I also knew it would be rude to bring up something that might upset Edith, so I didn't dare mention it or give her any special instruction regarding my Annie. I had given Annie to her … what she now did with Annie was none of my business. Rather than say anything to incriminate myself, I whispered a faint goodbye to Annie, then quickly turned and rushed from the room without looking back.

My heart pounded madly in my tiny chest. I knew I had done the right thing. The way Edith's face shone with joy had been evidence of how much Annie had already helped in her recovery. But I couldn't stop the hot tears that scalded my cheeks and dripped onto the empty baby blanket I still held tightly. Mother joined me in the hall, hugging me for comfort. She knew how much giving Annie away had cost me. She understood my pain.

We padded noiselessly down the hospital halls that were accustomed to sharing grief. We descended the long brick stairway outside the hospital and were greeted by the early spring rain. The cold drops splashed on my cheeks, mingling with my tears. Before long, we had boarded the city bus and were seated behind the bus driver. As the bus chugged up Sunrise Boulevard, I felt as if a wide crack was forming between me and Annie, a crack that I was sure could never be sealed.

I had never felt so alone. Tenderly, I patted the forlorn baby blanket in my lap. Though it had been very hard, I knew that Jesus had helped me today to give a gift of love, and deep inside there was a spark of warmth in knowing I had done something special. But even deeper was a sadness that would not go away.

Mother's words, “Expecting nothing in return when you give” gripped my heart.

Over time, the hurt did seal over, but I never forgot Annie. I certainly never expected my empty arms to embrace another Annie. But, nearly fifty years later, God unexpectedly gave my heart's desire back to me.

Recently, while I examined a shelf filled with kitchen gadgets in the household section of a thrift shop, my wandering eyes spotted a beautiful doll all dressed up in her pink Sunday best. My heart skipped a beat and unexpected tears filled my eyes as I gazed, at long last, at the very same Annie doll I had given to my cousin so many years ago. Her wavy auburn hair framed a delicate blushing face, just as the hair on my Annie had.

Someone had placed a brand-new replica of my Annie in the wrong section of the store. And there she perched — atop a pile of assorted muffin tins and cookie cutters — looking just exactly as I had seen her the first time, perched on top of Christmas presents beneath my Christmas tree so many years ago. As I looked at her, it was as if she winked, as if she knew all along that I had missed my Annie so much all these years.

With shaking fingers, I reached for her. Holding her close, I felt a small glow in my heart. It may sound silly to someone else, but to me it was as if God had decided it was time for Annie and me to find one another again, and seal the hurt for good.

I couldn't wait to take her home with me.

Now Annie lives with me again, right where she belongs, and right where she will remain forever.

BY M. DELORIS HENSCHEID

C
arefully, I removed the tissue paper from the life-sized baby doll, rubbed my hand lovingly over her rough, cracked head, and straightened the pink dress. “I can't believe you're seventy years old,” I whispered, a smile touching my lips. “I still remember the lesson you taught me.”

I gently placed her beneath the Christmas tree, then sat with closed eyes and welcomed the memories of another Christmas many years ago.

It was an early 1938 December morning when I stepped out of our little house in Idaho Falls to walk the six blocks to Hawthorne School, where I was in the first grade. Something was different; snow was still piled everywhere, but it was not as cold. The glorious sun was melting the snow, creating wonderful, slushy puddles everywhere. Puddles were on the sidewalks, in the street, even in the snow that looked like tiny, silver lakes floating in mountains of vanilla ice cream.

It was so much fun walking to school that morning; I even forgot about those itchy long johns and hated long brown stockings I wore. I splashed in the baby puddles on the sidewalks and swooshed through the giant puddles in the streets. I climbed up on the snowy mountain and stuck my feet way down into the soft, wet snow — as far down as they would go — clear to the top of my long brown stockings. Then I slipped and tumbled down, squealing in delight. All the way to school, my galoshes made happy, sloshing noises.

When I finally opened the heavy door of the school, the long hall was empty and quiet. I quickly tiptoed into the cloakroom, hung my wet outdoor clothes on the hook, then pulled off the galoshes and left them in a wet puddle on the floor. Peeking into the classroom, I saw Teacher busy taking attendance. I tried to slip into my seat without notice, but failed.

“Oh, you're here,” Teacher said, looking up at me sharply. “Why so late?” As if to answer her own question, her eyes dropped from my face to my wet shoes and dripping long brown stockings.

Her eyebrows rose slightly. “Did you bring an extra pair of stockings?”

My tummy felt funny. I couldn't look at Teacher. My voice wouldn't work. I shook my head.

“I'm sorry, but you know the rules,” Teacher said. “You cannot stay at school in wet clothes. You'll get sick. You have to go home and change.”

Anger bubbled inside of me as I stomped down the school sidewalk, soaked to the skin. I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to change my clothes.

Suddenly, I heard a big, loud crashing noise. A huge machine was digging long holes in the ground nearby. As the giant dirt eater crawled forward, it took another bite and spit out the dirt to one side. Behind the mountains of dirt lay a long line of cement pipes, one after the other, like a huge gray snake.

As I stared at the pipes, I had an idea. The men were busy with the machine, so they didn't see me crawl into the big round tube. My back shivered when I sat on the cold cement, but I didn't let that stop me from my sneaky plan.

The wet stockings were hard to pull off. They clung to the soggy long johns and my sticky, cold feet, but I refused to give up. When they finally flipped free, I fell back, hitting my head against the pipe and scraping my hand on the rough cement. Tears burned and spilled down my cheeks, dripping off my shivering chin. It was hard for my numb fingers to turn the cold, wet stockings inside out, but somehow I managed. Then I huffed and puffed to get them back on my goose-bumpy legs.

I was tired and hungry when I tromped back into the school, but I smiled at my cleverness. I didn't feel quite so clever when Teacher met me in the cloakroom and asked, “Did you go home and change your stockings?”

“Y-Y-Yes,” I stammered. “But Mama didn't have any clean clothes for me.”

Teacher looked at me for a long time, then turned and left the room. When she came back, she bent over and whispered, “Your mama wants you to go home, now.”

I ran home as fast as I could. Mama was waiting at the door for me. I threw my arms around her and a huge gush of tears splashed down my face.

Mama held me tight. “All right,” she said as she patted my back. “Tell me what happened.” When I finished telling my story, Mama told me to take the wet clothes off, go to bed and get warm, and think about what I should do to right my wrong.

Early the next morning, I got some paper and crayons out of the drawer, sat at the table, and drew a picture of me, with big tears, sitting in the cement pipe holding my long brown stockings. I wrote on the bottom:

DeR TECHR IM SORRE.

Then I took my picture to school and laid it on Teacher's desk. I knew my teacher would forgive me because that's what teachers do, but had my actions been seen farther away than the classroom?

Christmas was coming. I began to worry that Santa had seen me in the cement pipe turning my long brown stockings inside out. I could think of little else until Christmas Eve finally arrived. That night, I pinned my long brown stockings together with a big safety pin and hung them over a chair near our Christmas tree. The next morning, I jumped out of bed and ran to my stockings. Both stockings were hanging, lumpy and heavy. Quickly, I shook out the first one. There was an apple, an orange, a banana, nuts, and lots of candy.

“Goody!” I squealed.

Then I reached into the second stocking and pulled out lumps of coal.
Oh, no, Santa had seen me in the pipe. Then I found a letter pinned on the stocking. It read:

Dear little friend,

This is to help you remember to always be true.

I know you are trying because I heard you tell

Mama and Teacher you were sorry.

Thank you for being a brave girl.

Now, look under the Christmas tree.

Love Santa

I ran to the tree and there sat my beautiful doll. And right next to her, folded neatly, were three new pairs of long brown stockings!