Christmas “back in the day” was observed quite differently than we celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus today. In the 19th century, the Alabama frontier was flooded with European emigrants who migrated down from Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. They brought with them many traditions of the “old country.” Some of these traditions are celebrated today in very different ways, but we seem to always want to remember the Christmas stories of our youth, the “old time Christmas.”
For me, it was the Christmases of the early 1950s. For my parents, it was the Christmases of the 1920s and the great depression era, and for their parents, the Christmases of the 1800s and on and on. Christmas is grounded in memories.
We are fortunate today to have TV, photographs and movies to refresh our memories. In the days of the early settlers, the stories were handed down from generation to generation. The theme of most of the old stories centers on the belief that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” This is perhaps supported in the Biblical story of the gifts of the Magi in their homage for the ultimate gift of the infant Jesus.
Gifts at Christmas were meager back in the 1800s compared to those of today, but they were no less appreciated, based on the stories told about those times.
Santa Claus emerged from the European stories of St. Nicholas. Other traditions emerged as well. Stockings or socks, if folks had them, were hung or laid out for Santa to fill with nuts, candies and maybe fruit. Depending on the ages of the children, a doll made of pine straw or a ball of tightly wound string covered with leather might have been included.
Christmas is always a joyous time, no matter how meager or extravagantly celebrated.
There are so many stories to be told about Christmas. I am sure everyone has a favorite. I would like to share one of mine. This is a story about a 15-year-old boy on a cold Christmas Eve in 1881. The author of the story is unknown, but I like to think it is the boy who tells the narrative. I am not even sure it is a true story, but I choose to believe that it is.
The story begins with the boy … “Pa never had much compassion for the lazy or those who squandered their means and then never had enough for the necessities. But for those who were genuinely in need, his heart was as big as all outdoors. It was from him that I learned the greatest joy in life comes from giving, not from receiving,” he said.
On Christmas Eve 1881, the boy was down in the dumps and pouting because he knew there was not extra money for the rifle that he had been wanting for Christmas, though he knew something was up when his father went outside to hitch the team to the wagon, which was unusual on Christmas Eve.
His dad came inside and said, “Get your hat and coat, son, we have an errand to run.”
“Where?” the boy asked.
“Just come on,” his father answered.
Outside, they heaped a large load of firewood into the wagon, and the boy’s father went into the smokehouse and came out with a large ham, some bacon, a sack of flour and some other things. He loaded them into the wagon, and they were on their way.
Along the way, the father told his son how he had gone by the widow’s house a few miles down the road that day, and he’d noticed that she and her children did not have any wood to burn in their woodpile. He also noticed that the children did not have shoes, and their little feet were wrapped with gunnysacks.
The two arrived at the widow’s house and unloaded the wood. Then they knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” a voice asked from the other side of the door.
“Just us from down the road a piece, Miss,” the father said.
She cracked the door and, after recognizing her neighbors, invited them in. She was wrapped in a quilt, and the three children were huddled in a blanket before a small fire.
“We brought you a few things ma’am,” the dad said, putting the flour on the table.
The boy deposited the meat there, as well.
Then the father produced a bag with some shoes in it. There was a pair for the missus and a pair for each of the three children. There was hard candy in the bag, too.
Well, tears began to flow down the cheeks of the widow. She tried to speak, but the words would just not come from her trembling lips.
The father told the son to go out and bring in some wood. The boy left the house with a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. When he came back in with the wood, he was a new person. He helped his father build a grand fire to warm the little house and watched as the children giggled while eating their candy.
The widow was finally able to say, “God bless you” and “I know the Lord has sent you. The children and I have been praying that He would send an Angel to spare us.”
The boy knew it was so, and he was certain not a better man lived on Earth than his Pa.
On the way home, after they had gone a ways down the road, the father turned to the son and said, “Son, I want you to know something. Your mom and I have been tucking a little money away all year, so we could buy that rifle that you have been wanting, but we didn’t have enough. Yesterday a man who owed me a little money from years back came by to make things square.
“We got real excited thinking that now we could get you that rifle. On my way into town to buy the rifle, I saw the widow’s children scratching for wood in the woodpile with their feet wrapped in rags, and I knew what I had to do. I spent the money for shoes and a little candy for those children. I hope you understand.”
The boy understood all right. His Pa had given him much more than a rifle; he had given him the best Christmas of his life – the look on the widow’s face and the smiles and giggles of those three children. He never forgot that Christmas and the lesson he learned; it truly is more blessed to give than to receive.
Merry Christmas!
