Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.
~Charles Schulz
I was a “miracle baby,” an only child, so my parents tended to spoil me, especially at Christmastime. They wanted to make certain my Christmases were special and memorable. And each one truly was. I still have vivid memories of my parents’ proud smiles on Christmas morning as I opened one gift after another and squealed with delight.
As the years passed and I grew older, Christmas remained a much-anticipated event. My mother loved to shop, cook and decorate. She also was determined to make opening gifts on Christmas morning a bit of a marathon. She, my dad and I would take turns unwrapping one gift at a time, which usually took hours because my mother wrapped every little item separately. A desk set that came with a pen, box of paper clips, a stapler, etc., would become eight gifts rather than just one. That way, we could prolong and savor the unwrapping for as long as possible.
They say that opposites attract, and when I met my future husband, Joe, it proved to be true. I was sociable and outgoing. He was quiet and shy. I had a close, loving family. His relationship with his family was strained.
Joe and I began dating one January and after a whirlwind courtship, were married that October. As our first Christmas together approached, I looked forward to it with the same childlike anticipation I’d always felt. But when I rambled on excitedly about the gifts I was going to buy, the decorations I was going to hang and the foods I was going to cook, I noticed my husband wasn’t sharing my enthusiasm. I finally asked him why he seemed so apathetic about the happiest time of the year.
“Because it never was happy for me,” he said. As he spoke, I was surprised to see tears filling his eyes. “My dad had a problem with… well, keeping money. He and my mother argued about it all the time. We moved a lot, from one apartment building to another, always one step ahead of the bill collectors. Once, when I was about eight, I saved up some money by cashing in the five-cent deposit on pop bottles I found in the alley near our apartment building. Then I walked over to Woolworth and bought a small set of plastic toy soldiers. I wrapped them in notebook paper as a Christmas gift to myself. I cherished those soldiers and kept them until I grew up and actually became a soldier.”
When I later related Joe’s story to my mother, she couldn’t hold back her tears.
“That’s just terrible!” she said, sniffling and reaching for a tissue. “We’re just going to have to make it our mission to give him the best Christmas ever — one that will make up for all of those he missed as a child!”
And we did exactly that. We splurged and bought him every gift he possibly could want. My mother planned a Christmas menu that contained all of his favorite foods. We even visited a Christmas tree farm, where we chopped down our own tree. We were determined to give Joe a Christmas spirit overload.
On Christmas Eve, Joe and I stayed at my parents’ house so we could get up bright and early for the annual gift-opening marathon. Never had I seen so many gifts piled under the tree… and the majority of them were for Joe. I could barely wait to see how thrilled he was going to be with everything we’d selected for him.
As we sat and opened our gifts, my parents and I couldn’t help but notice that Joe didn’t seem as pleased or excited as we’d anticipated. In fact, when he opened an expensive toolset that he’d really been wanting, he actually looked uncomfortable.
Hours later, after all the gifts had been opened, and stacks of boxes and packages lay at our feet, my mother dared to ask Joe, “Didn’t you like the things we bought for you?”
“Oh, they’re all great,” he said, “but a little overwhelming.”
“We wanted to make your Christmas special,” my mother explained. “We wanted to make up for all of the Christmases you missed as a child, and for all of the gifts you never received.”
My husband looked directly into my mother’s eyes and said, “But I didn’t need all of these gifts to make my Christmas special. All I ever needed was to know that someone actually cared enough about me to remember me. That’s the best gift of all.”
So on that Christmas morning, back in 1971, we realized that Christmas gift-opening marathons weren’t what made Christmas special or memorable — being with people who truly loved you was.
Joe passed away a week before Christmas in 2012.
I still put one special gift for him under the tree that year… a small set of plastic toy soldiers.
~Sally A. Breslin
