Christmas 1967

The final holiday post of the season.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

This is the final piece in my holiday series and is a favorite. This piece has been widely published in many periodicals and one of the holiday “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books. It is a true story, but some details have been changed.

Christmastime brought magic to our rural Indiana town. Citizens visited the brick post office to mail Christmas cards and visit Postmaster Clarence Pook. Across the street at the library, Edna, the Story-Hour Lady, dressed in pioneer clothes, read holiday stories to children.

The day after Thanksgiving, the volunteer firefighters hung giant red-and-white plastic candy canes from the lamps on State Street and displayed a life-size manger scene near the three-way intersection at the south end of town. Snow came early and blanketed the ground until after the state boys’ basketball tournament in early spring.

My father bought our real Christmas tree from a local farm every year. Our ranch-style home lacked a fireplace, so my brother and I hung our red-and-white flannel stockings on the windowsills. Mom used Elmer’s glue and green glitter to paint our names on the furry white part of the Christmas stockings.

My father taught high school science and agriculture and advised the Future Farmers of America chapter. The FFA chapter raised money, bought the high school a real Christmas tree, and decorated it with blue, green, and red bulbs and fragile, sparkling glass ornaments. The school community enjoyed the tree until the semester ended.

Tradition dictated that the FFA boys and my father take the tree and decorations to a needy family chosen by the other teachers.

Our 1965 Chevy Biscayne station wagon was inadequate to cart the nearly nine-foot tree to this family. Dad borrowed the school’s World War II-era Army truck from Willie Sims, the maintenance man, and let the chosen family know they would receive a large, fully decorated Christmas tree. Dad and several FFA boys would bring the tree to their home. Dad had his students put the decorated tree in the back of the old truck.

The three of them—the thirty-something schoolteacher and the two teenage boys in blue corduroy Future Farmer jackets—were in a festive mood, congratulating themselves on the good deed they were about to do for a family of twelve children with a father who was out of work. They traveled east on the state highway past the well-manicured farms, bright, freshly painted red barns, and white fences.

As the old truck turned onto a county road, pieces of packed ice and gravel spit up from the truck’s worn tires.

Nearing the family’s home, Dad turned around and looked in the truck bed to check on the gift.

No tree.

No lights.

No decorations.

No green and red metal tree stand.

Nothing but an empty and scratched truck bed. Dad turned the truck around. He and the students retraced their steps to the town where the shops had closed for the night.

The twinkle of holiday bulbs and the Evangelical United Brethren Church lights signaled evening. Nothing could be found.

Dad thought about it. “What should I do? Should I go home and get our tree?”

He did not believe that was a viable choice, with his two small children enjoying the tree, but he steeled himself for that option. If need be, he thought, his children could learn about sharing.

The gray truck and three not-so-wise men arrived in town as darkness fell. A tree lot at the used car place was closing for the night. Dad reached into his wallet and bought the most excellent tree on the lot.

Then, off to Huffman and Deaton’s Hardware for lights, ornaments and a new metal tree stand. Joe Huffman was closing his register for the day but recognized my father and let him in.

With a new tree in the bed of the beat-up gray truck, the group headed east again. As they tentatively approached the family’s large farmhouse, they could spy children watching them from each window.

The family’s older children greeted the group and set up the tree in their living room. Dad noticed a stack of presents and bags of candy and fruit donated by the Lions Club and other community groups. The scent of anticipation and cinnamon apples hung in the air. T

he teacher and the teenagers left the family in happiness and wonder. Dad and those high-school students received a huge blessing when they saw the lights in the eyes of those children.

Several weeks after that Christmas, Dad went into the brick post office to pick up the mail and chat with Clarence, the postmaster.

A man Dad did not know came in and began talking to Clarence loudly.

“Clarence,” the stranger said. “It’s the oddest thing. I was driving east of town a few nights before Christmas, and you would not believe it. I found a completely decorated, beautiful, nine-foot Christmas tree that someone had thrown in a ditch!”

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Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah to you and yours. Please find the light in these dark times, even for a moment.