CHRISTMAS MEMORIES
FROM DODDRIDGE COUNTY
This year as we all prepare for that special time of the year when family gatherings become a time for reminiscing, I wanted to share some Christmas memories with all of you as they were shared with me. I am not including their names to protect their privacy.
The Christmas Miracle
This first story took place during the Great Depression at a time when it was a great struggle just to feed their families. Gifts were hard to come by or missed out on altogether.
This gentleman spoke of the memory with warm reverence as he began. “You have to remember that times were really hard, and the kids knew that, even the small ones. Anyway, I was about six or seven years old. My mother, a very religious woman, was working in the kitchen. I came into the room, and she asked me to set a plate and a glass for the milk. We had a cow, so we always had milk.”
“I began placing the plates and glasses on the table but didn’t understand why. We had no food to put on the plates. A simple glass was all we needed because we had milk at least. As I was going around the table, I looked at my mother humming as she worked just the way she always did. I couldn’t stay quiet any longer and asked her why I was placing plates on the table when there was no food to put on them.
She stopped humming for a minute and gently smiled at me saying, ‘Son, the Lord will provide. I prayed for us, and He knows our trials.’ Then began softly humming again.
Before I was finished setting the table, I noticed a man coming up the lane in a buckboard wagon. ‘Mommy, we have company,’ I told her excitedly.
‘I was expecting company,’ she smiled and stepped out on the porch.
The man got off the wagon and approached the house with a large burlap sack filled with stuff. He looked at my mother as he came up the steps and said that he didn’t know how or why, but something just told him that we needed some food, so I brought you a little bit of everything.
‘It was the weirdest thing, never had that happen before,’ he said half to himself as he was leaving.
That burlap sack was filled with dried beans, potatoes, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and a bunch of other things. I can’t remember them all. I know there were some oranges in there. They tasted so good.
My father was a proud hard-working man. He worked in timber and had been severely hurt. He had been laid up for a while and the provisions had run out. We were a large family with nine kids. That’s a lot of mouths to feed.
I never doubted my mother or her faith again. We call this our Christmas miracle. My father did recover and was once again able to work to feed his family.”
No Gift Under the Tree
Our next story is about a young boy of about thirteen.
“Like so many families, money was tight, and we didn’t expect much for Christmas and that was okay. We understood.
However the previous year, they forgot to put a gift for me under the tree so you could imagine that I was concerned about whether I had one under the tree that year.
As the gifts were being handed out, I was getting a little more concerned because mine hadn’t been given yet.
My father told me to look farther under the tree. I crawled under the tree almost as far as I dared go. But Dad said to go back a little farther, maybe it’s back there. I started to crawl back as far as I could get when something came down from above me, through the tree itself. I stopped in my tracks and looked up as best as I could. It was kind of tight under there. About that time, something came down right in front of my face. I recognized it immediately. It was something that I had wanted so badly… a 22 cal. Rifle. It was one of my fondest memories of Christmas. I gifted that rifle to one of my children, hoping they realized how much it meant to me.”
Boys, Girls… Cap Guns For All
This Doddridge County woman remembered fondly how much they looked forward to Christmas Eve. They opened their gifts then and not on Christmas morning.
“We didn’t have much, but then neither did anyone else. There were six of us kids and our parents tried to stretch their finances as far as they could to make sure we kids all got a little something under the tree.
I remember that the girls all got a small doll, and the boys often got a pocket knife. Most of the boys carried a pocket knife back then. But we all got a small dime store, single-shot cap pistol, and oh how we loved to play with them. We each got a couple of boxes of caps, and we used them sparingly. At least to us, it seemed sparing. That evening was full of pistol shots and laughter.
When I think of the noise we made, I smile and wonder how our parents ever survived the evening. They were great. They were hard-working, God-fearing, family-loving parents. We were so lucky and didn’t even know it. I wish I could tell them how blessed we were. I hope they knew how much we loved them.
Christmas Come Lately
Our next story is about a woman who grew up with many hardships and disappointments, and it wasn’t until she was married that she found her favorite memory.
“I guess you could say that I had two favorite memories. The first one was when my father bought me these tall, fringed suede moccasin shoes. I had asked for them for Christmas but didn’t expect to get them. Life had fought with me most of my childhood, at least until I went to live with my father. It was then that I finally knew the love of a parent.
Back to my memory though… I knew that my father was working late an awful lot, and I did miss having him in the house. It left me alone with my stepmother, who I was sure didn’t like me very much. On Christmas morning, I learned why he had been working over. He had put in all those hours to save enough money to buy me those knee-high fringed moccasin boots. I wore those things everywhere until they finally wore out. They were the greatest gift he ever gave me.
My next favorite memory was after I got married. My husband bought me a beautiful pair of diamond earrings. While I was so grateful for the earrings, that was not what made them so special. He hid them and placed written clues that I had to follow until I found them. Amazingly, they were hanging on the Christmas tree for weeks and I never saw them.
What a Christmas! It was so much fun.”
The Greatest Gift
This last story is such a poignant one that I saved it for last. The person who told this story was about six years old at the time.
“I was not very big at the time and my father was struggling to get food on the table. There were six children and both our parents, making eight mouths to feed.
It was a week or so before Christmas when I walked in on my parents having a deep discussion and they didn’t see me in the doorway. My mother had her arm around my father who was distraught for some reason. I was sure what it was. I had never seen my father like that. He was a very strong alpha male who took pride in caring for his family.
Then, I heard my mother calling him by name, saying, “It’s okay. The children know that you would buy them everything they wanted if only you could. They’ll be happy with the fine dinner and the oranges you got for them.”
I was so traumatized, not because I wasn’t getting anything for Christmas, but because that fact had brought my father to such despair. I backed out of the door, and they never knew that I heard that conversation. It would have embarrassed my father.
It was the greatest Christmas I ever had because that year I learned that what I got that Christmas was immeasurable, unconditional love… the kind that only a parent can give.”
As we celebrate Christmas this year, let us remember that God loves us so much that he gave his only child to die on the cross for us, His children, that’s immeasurable, unconditional love. Isn’t it?
God Bless and Merry Christmas
Patricia Richards Harris