My First Christmas

Christmas memories are remarkable for me. Seems like Christmas was/is the turning point for the entire year – I still mark every one of my years by December 25th instead of January 4 (my birthday!!).

And special memories of Christmas bubble up now and again reminding me of wonderful “sugar plum” love and sometimes even disappointment. So this year I’m choosing to share with you one of those memories from my favourite Christmases and hope it will stir up your own best memories, too.

The first Christmas I can remember would be when I was five. We had moved to a new house. My brother was only a year old. The house had a big living room with 10-foot ceilings (that seemed to be twice that high to me) and right by the front door there was a wonderful floor to ceiling window where we always put the Christmas tree.

The Tree

I remember the beautiful, tall, green, live, pine tree decorated with lots of pretty Christmas balls and some lights that looked like little glass candles in plastic holders. The glass part was yellow, blue, red and green and the contrasting plastic holders were mostly two toned green and yellow or green and red. The candle portion, once heated up would produce unending bubbles inside the glass tube and make little glass clinking noises once in a while. They were featured every year of my memory on our trees (I even bought then for myself after I grew up left home).

Christmas carols would play all the time. So pretty.

Under the tree Mom would arrange a white sheet (so it looked like snow) and put down special, big wooden bowls with fresh oranges and mandarins and mixed nuts (especially my favourite English walnuts). And boxes of home made and carefully decorated Christmas cookies – more than you could ever eat! And hard candy with little Christmas trees and wreaths on them.

The Doll of my Dreams

I had seen -- and desperately wanted -- this wonderful, tall-as-me, walking doll so badly. I think as I look back it was a difficult year for money what with the move and a new brother and all. But I was five and there was nothing more important for me than that doll with the frilly, white, long dress and the little pink bows all over it. I can still see her lovely hands and little fingernails and her beautiful eyes that would close if you laid her down for a nap.

Meaning of Christmas

Then right after dinner the day before Christmas, Mommy came to me and said we needed to go into Daddy’s office. Now I knew this is where all the Christmas presents were “hidden”. And I wasn’t supposed to go in there at all.

Well actually I had wandered in there a few times anyway and could see all the enticing boxes up high covered in bags. But they were up so high I couldn’t actually see anything. But I knew my dolly was there because it was the biggest box ever.

So I was really happy because I thought she was going to give it to me now instead of having to wait till Christmas morning!!

Strangely, she brought the newspaper with her and sat down on Daddy’s office chair. She had me come look at a picture on the front page of the paper.

There was an image of a burnt down house. With a mommy and daddy and little girl standing outside in the falling snow. Mommy explained that this family had lost everything in a fire that very morning and would have no Christmas at all.

That made me feel real sad as I peered at every detail of that picture.

She looked at me and she looked up at the boxes. Then she got up from the chair and reached up real tall and brought down the very big box in the bag. She looked at me again. She said nothing but slowly pulled the bag off.

And there she was, my dolly! The most wonderful dolly I had ever seen. All I wanted to do was to touch her, to hold her, to brush her hair, to smell her skin, to give her a big kiss.

But Mommy put her hand on my shoulder and pushed me a little away (I would have slobbered on that box to be sure!).

She asked me to turn and look in her eyes. There were little tears there – I will never be able to forget.

And she said, “Sweetie, we must do something for this poor family and I want you to give the little girl your dolly. You would like to do that wouldn’t you or that little girl will have no Christmas at all.”

Well I did NOT want to give her my dolly. I had wanted that dolly more than anything in the world.

Mommy said, “What if it had been us, wouldn’t it be nice if some little girl wanted to give her dolly to you?”

Well, yes, I thought. That would be good.

I looked down at my dolly’s beautiful face and just wanted to touch her once.

Yet, as I thought of that other little girl, with nothing but cinders and dark boards surrounding her, I couldn’t resist. I reached out to the box with my dolly in it and pushed it to Mommy. I asked her to take my dolly to the little girl. And I have known all my life that this is and was what Christmas is supposed to be, always.

Holiday Wishes for You

I hope your Christmas and holidays are the best ever and they are crowded with family and friends, good food and time to remember all the moments of precious love you have ever had in your life. And I hope that by the time you get through New Years that the only memories that remain are the good ones for the past year.

With love from Lady Sheridanne Kelley