A Christmas Memory

by Susan L. Marsh

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From a young age I understood the concept that a lack of money meant a lack of presents and other goodies. One Christmas when I was young I knew that the year had been particularly tough. This Christmas even the tree was small and had come from a friends’ backyard. We had decorated it with lights and ornaments so it was still a good tree, and the “bad” section hid nicely against the wall, but it wasn’t the big fancy tree everyone else seemed to have.
Christmas Eve there were just a few presents under the tree, some of them were from me to my family and a couple were from friends. Most of them had the same wrapping paper on them since we all used the same roll. I remember going to bed thinking that there were barely enough to even cover the tree skirt, so I knew it was going to be slim pickings. I was not disappointed though-- I knew there had not been much money coming in.
Come morning I woke up and decided to sneak out and see what Santa had brought. It was still dark in the house (and outside!) and everyone else was sound asleep. I quietly opened the traitorous doorknob (I swear it squeaked only when I wanted it to be quiet) and padded out into the living room. When I came around the corner, I thought I was still sleeping!
The tree was glowing brightly and piled underneath it were presents of all shapes and sizes! All different wrapping papers……all different types of boxes…and some had MY name on them! To my young eyes the tree lit up the whole room and the pile of presents looked like it was going to avalanche on top of me! I stood there with my mouth open just staring at the presents……wow! Instead of attempting to sneak into one of my presents, I ended up just sitting in front of the tree and staring at them until someone else woke up and we could start opening them.
As far as I can tell, friends and family pooled together and bought us a whole bunch of little presents that added up to a giant pile for a very happy kid. Can I remember what they were? Not really-I just remember being so happy that there were so many things with my name on them!
That’s one of my favorite memories. There’s nothing like waking up to a pile of presents when you did not expect them!
Susan and crew

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