The Best Christmas

To me, a good Christmas is about lifting your spirits.  A good Christmas is about smiles and sharing and stuff.  The presents, the food and all the other Christmasy things are just icing on the cake.

What was your “Best Christmas Ever”?

While I’ve had some great Christmases I’d have to say my best Christmas ever was 34 years ago. 

It was right after one of my famous trainwrecks.

Well, my trainwrecks aren’t exactly widespreadedly famous, just “famous” amongst my kin.

If life is like a river, well, I’ve paddled my canoe through some pleasant passages.  And then there were some treacherous stretches full of rapids and whitewater.  That “Best Christmas Ever” came at the end of a year where my li’l “canoe of life” had gone over a waterfall and all my supplies were lost, so to speak:  I had totaled my car in a wreck...taking a mountain curve at 60 mph when I shoulda took it at 30...went flying into a creek...ripped a hole in my butt cheek.  And because my gig was a traveling salesman I lost my job.  With no job I couldn’t pay my rent so I lost my apartment. 

.           I figured I could go home until I pulled things back together.

            Boy, was I wrong.

            I called my folks.  My mom answered the phone.

            “Hi mom,” I was smiling.  “Can I come home, I’m in a bit of a mess.”

            “Well,” she said, “you’ll need to talk to your father.”

            She put my dad on the line.

            “Hi dad, can I come live with y’all till I get on my feet?”

            “No, son.”

            Wow, I was amazed at how fast he answered me.  I think they knew I’d be calling.

            I was dumbfounded.  It took a few seconds to gather my thoughts.             I gave a nervous laugh.  “I-I thought that’s what home is for, dad.  A place to come back to when it all goes down the tubes.”

            “Well, son, we believe if you stay out there and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps you’ll be a lot stronger.”

            Now that I look back on it I don’t think I would have let me come back home to live either. 

Things started looking better, though. 

Mom and Dad did let me come home for the weekend, the same weekend my aunt and uncle came to visit from Ohio.  They had stopped on the way and picked up a local paper from a couple of hundred miles up the road.  There was an ad in that paper for a job and the guy to contact was a dude I knew.

I called the guy and got the job over the phone.  Soon I was settled in to a new town and some new digs…the second floor of an old 1920’s house.  No fridge, no stove, no furnace, no furniture, no TV, but I had four big rooms, an enclosed second-story porch that faced the sunny south, a sleeping bag, a trunk, my stereo and all my record albums.  What more could anyone ask for?

The job didn’t pay much.  What I did make went for bills, rent and setting aside some bucks to get a car.  I cooked ramen noodles on a hot plate…lots and lots of ramen noodles.  And there was toast, lots of toast.  Nowadays, when I look at a pack of ramen noodles I get a queasy feeling.

Folks at work would be having burgers and fries and stuff for lunch...I wondered if a jury of my true hungry peers would convict me for attacking a co-worker for some fast food.

Winter came and my apartment turned into a fridge.  When I filled a tub for a bath the cold, cold porcelain would sap the heat from the water.  One room was so cold for a couple of weeks I could keep ice cream in it.  One subfreezing morning I even woke up with frost in my moustache.

Looking back on that time I realize I was just a step up from living on the street.

            Then I got a call…my folks were coming to see me for Christmas. 

Mom and Dad were taking me to dinner and they had a surprise.  It was a good feeling, knowing they were coming.  Plus I’d get something other than ramen noodles and toast to eat.  I was happy.

            Mom and dad took me to eat at one of the nicest places around.  We laughed, talked and I caught up on what the rest of the family was doing.  My folks brought presents too, new clothes; new shirts, new pants.  Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad about my circumstances.  Before they left my dad told me not to feel so bad about having to start all over.

            “Yeah, but you’re not eating ramen noodles and toast every day,” I laughed.

            He had some other tidbits of wisdom to share before they left that day, including that it wasn’t the end of the world if I didn’t have a car.  He was right, plus I found the walk to and from work kind of relaxing.   

            My father wasn’t with us much longer after that visit, that’s another reason I remember that Christmas.

            The following February he started having trouble standing on his right leg.  A trip to the doctor revealed a big ol’ brain tumor in his head.  By August he had “gone on to Glory.”

I always remember that December get-together.  I can still see my dad smiling from the driver’s seat as he and mom were about to drive away.

            “Things are a little tough for you now, son,” I remember him saying, “But someday you’ll look back on all this and laugh, maybe even write about it.”

            And so I have.

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