The Christmas Story

Recently I was reminded of one of the roughest Christmases I was ever privileged to while trying to tell my kids the meaning of the season.
I grew up in Harrisburg publicly poor. There are two different kinds of poor. People you know are poor and people you don't. I have been both during my childhood. We always seemed to lack extra money. Weird how that happens when you are raised by someone who likes to gamble. While Dad was in the army people didn't realize we didn't have much because everyone looked the same. Lived in the same kind of housing, wore the same things, all shopped at the same places and so on. In sixth grade my father, brother and myself moved to Harrisburg to live with my dad's girlfriend. She had money, but that still didn't make it's way down the chain to my brother and I. I had two pairs of jeans and second hand, bright silver wresting shoes. But still more privately poor. Not too long after we arrived in Harrisburg my dad and his girlfriend had a falling out and my grandma came to her baby boy's rescue. So she bought the trailer across from the grade school. Yep. We lived in the trailer across the street. Kind of hard to act like a trust fund child when you walk home to that. So from that point on it wasn't like I was fooling anyone on my financial situation.
December of '95, if I remember correctly, my brother had graduated high school and I was a Junior. Josh moved out post haste and I couldn't and didn't blame him. I was just my dad, my dog and myself. Many of you remember Pretty as the dog who layed in the street and wouldn't move for your car. Or maybe she ran over to the school during lunch to say hello. Perhaps you were at the football game at the high school when I had to chase her off the field before we could start the game. Good dog, but I am off topic. Dad got a call that Grandma had a heart attack. It was the week before Christmas and he was understandably distraught. He left immediately for California to be by her side. Good for him to support his mom like that. Not so fun for me, who was left at home. I had no family in Oregon at the time outside of Josh who was off doing something for the holidays that I can't recall. Mom was in Montana living her life there with my little sister. No Aunts or Uncles or anything like that. Just a newly christened seventeen year old home alone for the holiday.
I needed some kind of tree. So what if it were just the dog and I. A tree was definitely a must have. Ray Crosiar was free that day and a willing accomplice to trespassing and to a minor degree theft, so we went over by Morse Brothers to see what we could see, saw in hand. The trees were all too big to cut down and drag home. One of them had a pretty good looking branch though so we cut it off and drug it to the trailerhood. We kind of wired it up since I didn't have a stand and it looked...well...like a branch wired up. So pretty pathetic. I knew why it looked so pathetic though. No decorations. We didn't have any decorations but being a resourceful youth I did the next best thing. Toilet paper. This was the logical choice because a) I had some (Thank God) and b) it could be reused and my butt would have a nice aroma of pine.
I settled in for my lonesome holiday. Chin up though. I don't remember being sad. I just remember knowing that it was the situation I had to deal with, so I had to just deal. Well I had been going to church for a bit and the family up seventh street had become a favorite of mine to hang out with. Gregg was a good guy who was really nice and Brenda seemed to think that I had a hand in hanging the moon. She also was constantly telling me I should marry her daughter Shannon. Shannon was a fun girl who always seemed to be fun and a bit sarcastic so I didn't mind that. Her little brother Kris was funny and annoying at the same time. Every time he would get me worked up enough to decide to put the hurt on him he would run away though. Well the Skovbo's caught wind of my predicament and asked me to spend the holidays with their family. Normally I would say no to the offer of help. Needing help means being vulnerable and being vulnerable meant being weak and if you are weak you can be hurt. I don't like being hurt. I lied a lot to people to get around them knowing I needed help. "My ride is on the way" "I don't like that movie so have fun but I am good" "I'm not hungry, don't feel well." Well for some reason instead of saying I was too busy wiping my ass with my tree decorations to go to their Christmas stuff, I just took the offer. As I told my kids it was a good Christmas. What did I get that Christmas? Well if we are talking about physical gifts, I got one. Shannon's family was gathered at her grandparents house all opening stuff and out came a gift for me. Much to my surprise. They obviously felt very bad for me and decided to give me a gift that was highly prized. A package of socks. Good thing I was an accomplished deceiver as I told them how much I liked the socks. "Hey white, my favorite color. How did you know?"
At this point both of my kids are silently watching me from the hallway. They are standing in the hallway because that is where they were when I started yelling at them about being ungrateful. Jax sparked the controversy. I told them to give me their non-electronic scaled back Christmas lists. Jax couldn't believe he would be missing out on all the stuff he wanted. He explained how excited he was to get those things at Christmas and also talked about the let down it would be after anticipating it all year. I told him Christmas was about caring for your family more than stuff. His reply stunned me. "Dad, I care about this family every other day of the year. Can't this be the one day I don't?" That is the point I started yelling my Christmas story at them. And that is where they stood as I finished my story about only getting socks.
"You know what though guys?" I said after drilling home the fact that I would rather they just say thanks for coming then pretending the socks were for me. "All I got for Christmas was a pair of socks. And it was the best Christmas I ever had. I spent time getting to know your mother, the girl I was going to marry. Even though she acted like she didn't want me there I know she did. I also got to spend time around a real family. One that loved each other and did real family things. I didn't get that. So although I got a pair of re-gifted socks I was still happy and thankful!"
Taylor welled up with tears as she began crying and telling me she was sorry that I had to spend Christmas like that. Jax, less indignant at this point said he understood now and was fine spending a Christmas that was family focused. I hugged my little girl and felt that sense of great satisfaction that come from knowing you have done your job as a parent. Making your kids to feel guilty about being spoiled.