I was one of ten children raised in what would be considered a very dysfunctional life style. What I mean by that is: we had a dark secret that was only known by my momma and daddy. But we kids were not aware of it until later.
I was only 13 years old at this Christmas time. I always remembered Christmas Eve as the eventful time of Christmas. We would always put up the tree that evening in which one of my brothers, that would be Clyde, would go into the woods to cut a tree down. Illegal, who knows, but we always got our Christmas trees that way.
As we decorated the tree momma would be making grilled cheese sandwiches, have potato chips and cold soda drinks brought from our grocery store/restaurant that we still owned at that time.
This Christmas though was a little different than the usual ones I had remembered.
As I begin to tell you what happened, keep in mind that we did the same thing every Christmas Eve. Having same: grilled cheese sandwiches, potato chips, cold sodas, and illegal cut down Christmas tree from a wooded area.
We always elected one of the older siblings to pass out the gifts, usually all homemade by each other, and sometimes an old prior gift just wrapped up again, and in the same Christmas wrapping paper from years ago.
We always kept the old years wrapping paper. As mamma said, “that paper doesn’t grow on trees.” Mamma said to keep it so that’s what we did, put it in a big old plastic bag to repeat the same thing over again next year. (Actually momma, paper does come from trees)
I learned that in chemistry class, dud!
All the homemade gifts were handed out and evening was coming to a close. We girls would head upstairs with tangerines, chocolate candy, and I guess our homemade Christmas gifts, acting as they were a prize possession, not nothing new, mind you, but hey! They were gifts, isn’t it the thought that really counts anyway?
We didn’t know about a Jesus back then, we had never been allowed to go to a church, even if church people would come by and say they would pick us kids up on their church bus and take us. There goes that dark secret momma and daddy knew.
So Christmas Eve was just another day for our dysfunctional family. As we girls left to head upstairs we left the Christmas tree that was standing so beautifully decorated, to become just a thing of the past.
BUT! Something happened that night that I will always remember. As we went to our bedroom, with our door closed, and ready to settle down on a cold winter’s night, there was suddenly a knock on our bedroom door. We opened the door and there stood our daddy, he said,” I have never given you guys a gift for Christmas before, but this year I wanted to”. We were so surprised, but sort of knew momma had something to do with this. He handed each of us three girls a $20.00 bill. We all thanked him. He then just turned and walked away.
That was not like our daddy. He was always in a bad mood, dishearten, and so hateful to all of us kids. He was never a true loving daddy, and even though we just knew that was a hard thing for him to do, we couldn’t help but let our hearts be filled with emotions as he took on this usual task . That year; Christmas 1956 will be a Christmas to be remembered.
As my newly published book, true story of my life titled:
"My Christian Journey Through a Fallen World " reveals this dark secret as well as many
other struggles, heartaches, UNTIL………………….The rest of the story.
When you don’t know any difference you find yourself living like there is no tomorrow, until you meet the Great I AM! I discovered from writing my published book that: you don’t have to be perfect to inspire other people, let them be inspired by how you deal with your struggles, heartaches and imperfections.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.
For the King and His Kingdom, Sarah Tyler-Author.
On Amazon, other book seller, or here on this site.