Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas (18 page)

“Say that again,” she said.

Together we wrote it down and practiced it. I was overjoyed to share our family's diversity with her second-grade class. No one, I was sure, possessed a memento quite as unique as ours. I couldn't wait for Sara to return home.

She did—crying.

“Mommy, how could you?” she sputtered with tears and a runny nose. “I was so embarrassed.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because people put stars and angels on top of a Christmas tree. Not bagels!” she said.

“But that's what makes our tree special.”

“But I don't want to be special. I just want to be normal like everybody else!”

“Oh, honey,” I said, “when you're older, you'll understand. From now on, we'll keep our bagel ornament our own little secret.”

“I don't want it,” she said. “I want a star on top of the tree!”

“Okay, we'll put a star on top. And we'll put the bagel somewhere else on the tree.”

“No,” she insisted. “No bagel.”

That was going too far. Eventually, we compromised.

We hid the bagel behind some thick needles and then covered it with garland and a colored ball. It was barely visible.

Since then, we've added ornaments to our growing collection, and every year, I ask the same question.

“Where shall we put the bagel?”

At first, it moved from its hiding place to a visible spot at the bottom of the tree. Eventually, it inched its way up branch by branch. Until one year, Sara allowed me to place it just below the star at the top.

Then, things changed drastically. Sara and Natalie decided they wanted to decorate the tree by themselves, no adults needed. They were teenagers and had to prove their independence.

I left them alone with hooks and boxes of ornaments and then crept out of the room with a bittersweet mix of emotions. My grown-up girls didn't need me anymore, but they'd learned to love and treasure our family traditions. In fact, they'd spent their own money to buy gifts for family and friends, wrapped them without help, and placed them under the tree with pride.

Despite numerous attempts to pass through the family room on the pretense of some important errand, my daughters confined me to the kitchen until they were done. When I was allowed back in, the eight-foot tree sparkled with festive lights, garland, colored balls, and a hundred family ornaments.

And there, on the very top of the tree, sat the little plastic bagel in its cracked transparent ball, suspended by its tattered red ribbon.

“How do you like the tree?” they asked, with smiles lighting up their faces.

I answered them silently as a tear rolled down my cheek.

Barbara Puccia

“I'm buying my mom something special for Christmas with my own money. Three gumball machine charms! Pretty good, huh?”

Reprinted by permission of Stephanie Piro. © 2003 Stephanie Piro.

6
SPECIAL
MEMORIES

I
n every conceivable manner, the family
   
is link to our past, bridge to our future.

Alex Haley

A Holiday to Remember

T
here is no ideal Christmas;
only the Christmas you decide to make
as a reflection of your values, desires,
affections, traditions.

Bill McKibben

It was Christmas 1991, and I was worried about the impact the holidays would have on my parents. The year had been very tough on them, beginning with an accident that required both to have surgery and ending with their home burning on November 5. The Thanksgiving holiday was hard on everyone, and I was doing my part to plan a special Christmas gathering filled with happiness instead of sorrow.

My sister, Diane, and I planned every moment as if it was the first time we spent the holidays together. The dinner would be prepared by us to give my mom a break from the turmoil. She and my father had been placed in temporary housing while their home was being rebuilt. Personal items were few and far between, so any effort to prepare a meal would have been a difficult task.

Since the tree my mom had used at Christmas was destroyed in the fire, I made arrangements to purchase a smaller tabletop version. I brought it to the house and decorated it with lights and ornaments. A small star was placed on top by the grandchildren, just as was done on the larger Christmas tree each Christmas Eve. The tree soon became the centerpiece as the packages surrounded its base and
ribbons sparkled with the reflections from the lights.

The small home my parents occupied soon filled with laughter as everyone arrived. The dinner was placed on the table, and we gathered together to say thanks for all we had shared the past year. We rejoiced at our triumphs and shed a tear or two over the challenges that life lay in our path, but we were thankful that it wasn't worse and felt blessed to be together for another Christmas.

After we ate, it was time to open the presents. This was the favorite part for the children. The smiles on their faces grew large, and their eyes opened wider at each gift that was passed toward their direction. They wasted no time tearing into the huge bows placed on top to see what surprise was underneath. Everyone seemed pleased with their gifts and was busy sharing with each other.

My mother disappeared from the room and came back with two smaller boxes wrapped in identical paper. Attached to each package was a card addressed to the recipient. One package was for me, and the other belonged to my sister.We were told to read the card first, so we carefully opened it to reveal the message inside:

“We wanted to give you something special this year. With money being a problem, we took our wedding rings and had them melted down to make these. The stones in each came from my engagement ring and the gold from both wedding bands. May the love bonded in these rings be passed on to you and your future generations. Mom and Dad.”

Inside the packages were the most beautiful identical rings we had ever seen. I felt numb as I looked into the loving eyes of my parents sitting beside me. Although they were given tough obstacles to overcome, my parents wanted to give something special and filled with love to their children. Nothing could have been more perfect!

I still feel special whenever I think of that Christmas and the tradition it created. I have the ring they gave me, and someday I will pass it on to my daughter along with the story behind the precious gift. I want her to share with me the feeling of receiving a special gift of cherished memories.

Denise Peebles

Ringing the Doorbells of Christmas

T
o many people, holidays are not voyages of
discovery, but a ritual of reassurance.

Philip Andrew Adams

The newspaper clipping is yellowed like a parchment scroll. The treasured article is over forty years old, written by a man who lived in the small town where I grew up. In an essay published in a church bulletin, S. L. Morgan, Sr. reminisced about two young visitors:

“One of my best Christmases was ‘sparked' by the visit of two tiny girls who rang my doorbell two weeks before Christmas and left a plain tiny Christmas card they had made. Actually, that ‘sparked' Christmas for me. It did something deep and wonderful in me.”

I was one of those little girls.

My best friend, Claudia, and I were already counting the days until Christmas, dreaming of the toys we would find under the tree on Christmas morning. We were eight years old and getting wiser. We knew Santa might not bring everything we wanted. Like our struggling parents, Santa appeared to be on a tight budget that year.

Claudia showed me a magazine ad about selling boxes of Christmas cards to win a shiny, new bicycle and other tantalizing prizes. Inspired by the printed testimonials of enterprising boys and girls who had sold thousands of cards, Claudia and I decided to make construction-paper cards and sell them to our neighbors, hoping to earn money to buy gifts and toys. We spent one Saturday morning laboring with crayons, scissors, and paste, designing the cards that promised to bring us untold riches.

But when my mother learned of our plan to sell the cards, she vetoed it, insisting that we give away the cards instead. (My genteel Southern mother must have been mortified by the prospect of her child peddling homemade Christmas cards door-to-door.) Claudia and I reluctantly agreed to honor my mother's wishes.

We spent an afternoon ringing doorbells, hand-delivering our cards to neighbors we thought might need some Christmas cheer. We rang Mr. Morgan's doorbell and, without much fanfare, handed the white-haired gentleman one of our crayoned greetings. The lines in the old man's face melted into a smile as he read the childish cursive: “Merry Christmas! We love you.”

“Thank you, girls,” he said. “This is the most beautiful Christmas card I've ever received.”

We thought he was just being polite, that surely the store-bought cards with gold foil and glitter were prettier than ours. Not until I read his article many years later did I realize how much our small gesture of goodwill had lifted his spirits.

After our visit, Mr. Morgan wrote later, he “began to tell neighbors, grouchy or sad, ‘Listen for the joy bells.'” He urged readers to “fill the mail with millions of postals with personal notes.” Over the years, Mr. Morgan continued the Christmas tradition of sending annual love notes to friends and acquaintances around the world: “I'm sure I've held many friendships intact for many years mainly by tiny love notes once a year,” he wrote. “Nothing in life has paid me better.”

Thanks to my mother, I am reaping the dividends of an investment made so many years before. The clipping in my scrapbook reminds me of the joy I felt as Claudia and I rang doorbells on that cold afternoon. I remember the smiling faces of the people we called on and their farewells echoing like chimes on the frozen air as we left them standing in their doorways, pleased and a little bewildered.

Several years ago, I mailed a copy of Mr.Morgan's article to Claudia. I followed his example by writing a personal note on the card, telling Claudia how much her friendship meant to me as a child, and how often I recall those years with fondness and love.

The reverberations of one afternoon continue to ring true through the years like the doorbells we rang as children on that cold December day.

Beth Copeland

The Secret of Grandma's Sugar Crock

W
hat we are is God's gift to us.
What we become is our gift to God.

Eleanor Powell

Through the years, I've discovered bits and pieces of the past that, when put all together, make up my extraordinary grandmother, Maria Carmela Curci-Dinapoli.

I knew that she moved to this country as a young immigrant from Italy and married my grandfather, Antonio Curci, in 1910. A few years later, she was widowed with three children. I had heard family stories of how Grandma struggled to find work, to pay her debts, and to keep her family together during those difficult years. In all of these stories, one fact remained prominent—Grandma's deep religious devotion guided her through each problem and task.

But it was only recently that I would discover yet another missing piece to Grandma's past that helped me know her just that much better. My memories of her begin on an Almaden ranch in the heart of California's prune country during World War II. By then, she had married her second husband, Grandpa Tony Dinapoli, and settled into rural ranch life, raising a family of seven boys and one girl.

During World War II, a government-issued flag imprinted with five blue stars hung in the front-room window of my grandparents' old farmhouse. It meant that five of their sons were off fighting in the war. Without the boys to work the land, the ranch was shorthanded. Grandma and Grandpa had to work twice as hard to produce a bountiful fruit crop.

During harvest time, every member of the family pitched in to help, including grandkids like myself. Even so, it was a difficult time for Grandma. Rationing was mandatory, there was little money, and, worst of all, there was the constant worry over whether her five sons would come home safely.