Sometimes, I read a story that touches me deeply and want to share it with my readers. I loved this story when I read it on Facebook. It reminds me of the Christmas gift exchange when I was a child. My story didn’t have the same ending, but I’ll save that story for another time.
Guest Author: Freda Zehr
It was bitterly cold that winter of 1945. I was in the third grade, and my father was my teacher.
We drove several miles each morning to a little one-room schoolhouse with grades one through eight. The room was heated by a pot-bellied stove in the back. I would curl up in a blanket and shiver while my father started a roaring fire to warm the building before the other children arrived.
Times were hard, and money was scarce in the post-World War II era. In retrospect, Christmas celebrations were indeed meager affairs, but we children were not aware of that.
We looked forward with great anticipation to all the festivities accompanying the season. Especially exciting to me was the Christmas program and gift exchange at school.
While financially difficult times were most everyone’s lot, in that little rural Pennsylvania farming community, the poorest of all the poor were the Davises, a family of four boys. They came to school skinny and underweight, their ragged clothes dirty, as were their hands and faces. Their lunches frequently consisted of simple bread-and-butter sandwiches.
Their very demeanor spoke of deprivation, so it was not great joy I felt when Herman Davis excitedly announced to me that he had received my name in the name pull. As the days went by, he spoke eagerly about what a wonderful gift he would get for me.
Finally, he came in one morning, bursting with the news that he had found the perfect gift—a kaleidoscope! His eyes sparkled as he spoke of it, and he described its beauty in glowing terms.
I had seen one such kaleidoscope in McCroy’s 5 and 10-cent store, and I longed for it. I didn’t see how Herman could possibly have the money to buy it, but I had never seen him so animated and happy. And so I got caught up in his enthusiasm and allowed myself to dream, to dare to think that somehow, some way, Herman had gotten the money for my heart’s desire.
Oh, that wonderful world of childhood innocence, where dreams are the stuff life is made of, where fantasy and reality intermingle so that those plain homemade decorations take on a glow. Memory now seems to clothe that barren pine tree in sparkling lights.
The day of the program finally arrived, and the weather cooperated. The snow began to fall softly as we played at noon recess. I had never noticed the beauty of snowflakes before. I gazed in wonder at the exquisiteness of their intricate patterns as they fell against the drabness of my dark winter coat. I looked up into that winter sky until the snow seemed to stand still, and I was floating upward.
As the time for the gift exchange neared, my father stood behind the large decorated box filled with the gaily wrapped gifts. He began to call out our names one by one.
As the names were being called, Herman had grown unusually quiet in his seat across from me. My seatmate Annabelle received her gift: a small, delicate, playful-looking china kitten clutching a small vial of perfume in its front paws.
Then my name was called. Herman seemed to retreat further into his seat as I rose to claim it.
Anticipation and excitement still filled me, even though intuition warned me of impending disappointment.
I unwrapped my gift to find inside a tattered spiral notebook, obviously used, with only a few clean sheets remaining, along with one of his school pencils, used, broken, and missing an eraser.
I looked across the aisle at him and saw only the back of his bowed head. One look at that disheveled hair and all my selfish wishes were swallowed up by my need to comfort that forlorn figure.
“Herman,” I whispered loudly across the aisle. He turned slowly and looked at me, and all these fifty years later, I can still see the look on his face. It was a mixture of sorrow, shame, and embarrassment, Yet just a hint of hope lurked in the shadow of his eyes.
“Thank you for the gift,” I said. His face broke into a smile, and relief filled every feature as the words started tumbling out, all jumbled and frantic.
“You mean you like it? You mean you’re not mad? I mean, I thought you’d be mad about the kaleidoscope. I couldn’t get back to the store to get it, and then it was too late and–” his voice trailed off.
“Please don’t worry about it,” I said, “This is just fine; I’ll use it to write a story. I like to write, you know, and I needed another notebook; my old one is filled.”
“Good,” He said, ”Good, good,” still grinning.
He turned his head at the sound of his name being called and bounced up front to receive his gift.
I went home, put the notebook in my bottom dresser drawer, and removed the kaleidoscope from my mind. However, on Christmas morning, when I opened my gift from my aunt Mary, who always seemed to know the secrets of a child’s heart, I found, to my delight, the kaleidoscope.
But even as I reveled in its beauty, I sensed that the joy did not compare to the feeling I had experienced a few days before, in that little school room, where I had learned for the first time that it is more blessed to give than to receive and that the gifts of love and understanding are of far greater value than anything money can buy.
More Christmas stories:
The Sound of Christmas Music…Noise
You can buy the Christmas Tree Poems book here: Christmas Tree Poems paperback or Christmas Tree Poems Kindle version