Part of the reason for this is being raised a Jehovah's Witness. JWs don't celebrate holidays. But, I think the real reason I am the way I am is my weird family. My father was an alcoholic who rarely supported us and my mother was slowly going mental, probably starting when she lost her entire family.
Anyway, as JWs we could not celebrate, but, sometimes my parents would get me and Wayne gifts. Nothing spectacular, usually dolls for me and cap pistols for Wayne. But, they would not let us take them around any of our friends until after Christmas. That way the JWs would not know that we had gotten
The year I was eight was the first Christmas after my parents had divorced. Times were even harder for us financially and we did not even pretend to think we would have anything for Christmas.
About two weeks before Christmas, our older brother told us not to go into his room because he had painted the floor. Wayne and I tried to think of ways to get in there, but knew we would leave footprints. A few days later we pushed our fingers under the door as far as we could to see if the floor was still wet, but James came home just then and scared us off. Neither Wayne or I thought that there was anything in there for us. However, James was so cool. He loved magic and had all sorts of neat tricks in his room. And, he was a ventriloquist and had two dummies. (Remind me to tell you how he made the face of the first one.) James also had been thinking up and building tricks on his own, and we thought that he had finally gotten his duck trick finished. (That's another story.) But, what with school being out and our mean middle brother watching us, we had no other chances to sneak into James' room.
I had made something for my best friend, who lived next door. I can't remember what it was, but I remember putting it into a matchbox and using tin foil to wrap it in. Christmas Eve, I whined until Wayne walked next door with me to give it to Ronnie. He (Wayne) tried to run ahead so he could hide and scare me, but I was a faster runner then. So, we walked back home arguing about something silly. As we got closer to the house, he ran ahead through the back door and into the kitchen. Then he stopped. I came in and pushed him, fussing again because he was in the way. Then, I saw it. Standing against the living room wall was a brand new bicycle. Brand new. So new it was shiney. My mother was sitting at the kitchen table and said something about weren't we going to go look at what was in the living room. Until then I had no idea that there was anything other than that beautiful bike. Wayne went directly to it and I walked around the corner into the living room and found a record player with a stack of records, a Jerry Mahoney dummy and instruction book. I was afraid to touch anything. Finally, my mother told us that James had decided that Christmas was going to be special for us. He had been saving money for and buying these things for the past month. And, hiding them in his room of course.
I will never forget the look on his face as he sat on the couch watching me and Wayne that Christmas. That was magical. A truly magical Christmas. I keep trying to get that feeling that I felt all those Christmases ago back again and give a taste of it to my children. I don't know that I ever have.
1 comment:
Wow, that's so awesome that your older brother would do that for you. Our parents didn't divorce until we were all much older, but my oldest brother was always like a father figure to me. I'm glad now we are more like siblings and less like parent and child. I know he wasn't my dad, but he took care of me and attended my different activities at school, where my father did not. I'm so glad God blessed me with him!
God bless, Jo
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