Jeez ma...
No CMP CHRISTMAS PRESENTS!!!
...Gather round and I'll tell you a true Christmas story from my youth...
Once upon a time .....er...
I'll start again..
My dad worked for a major Canadian Bank and in '53 he was transfered to a small branch in one of the small outports in Newfoundland..
This outport was not as isolated as some and had a govt wharf and regular boat traffic and a fish plant and an unpaved road out to St.John's ,7-8 hours away by car..
7 flat tires on one trip my dad made to a meeting in St Johns..
Anyway ..Christmas of '53 my mom was asking around to see if there were any familys that needed food hampers at Christmas..
Through the Anglican church there was one family that had great need of anything we could spare..
The family had lost the husband at sea in a fishing accident and the mom had three or four small kids as I remember..
Anyway we got directions to the house,packed up some stuff and off we went on Christmas eve..
My dad arrived at the house..a weather beaten little house,paint peeling and windows sealed over the cracks with newspapers and in poor repair..It was a wild and stormy afternoon and dad beat on the door and was greeted like a long lost friend and the woman,probably in her late 30's waved us in..We lugged all the stuff in a trailed into the house..The house ,as I remember ,only had a few rooms and the main room was the kitchen..a dry sink..Ice box..and big wood cooking and heating stove..It was fired up and she was rolling out dough to make bread..
The kids were trying to steal bits of raw bread dough to eat and the smaller ones had shirts and underwear ,no shoes or socks.The two little ones had undershirts and cloth diapers.
The place had a dirt floor...
Looking back I could say those kids were starving to death..
You have to remember the times..NFLD had just come into confederation 4 years before..
Communications were slow to nil..
There was no welfare..
And people were poor..
But the Newfoundland spirit and love was still alive in that poor little house..
After we unloaded a pile of presents and food and stuff the oldest child...a girl if I remember ,went to the cupboard and got a stool and reached into the cupboard and brought out an orange..!!
It was the only thing that they had for Christmas and they were saving it for Christmas day..
That young girl peeled it and divided it up and we all had a section of orange...
I'll never forget that ..
As poor as that Newfoundland family was they wanted to share their last orange with strangers..
I remember that my mom and dad never let that family get in that state again as long as we lived there and that the Church paid special attention to them..But there were many hard stories like that in Newfoundland...and any other place that you want to look..if you want to go out and find them..
I think of that family every Christmas and a few years ago had a family meeting.I was so Peeeeeeeee'd off at the Commercialization of Christmas I told the family that I wasn't giving out any more Christmas presents ..I was giving the money that I was going to spend on them to the Church Christmas family fund that feed poor family's at Christmas..
I got a rounding great vote of Yeas and to this day we all give our Christmas present money to the fOOd bank or the church Christmas hamper fund..
So you won't find any Christmas presents under our tree..and we wouldn't have it any other way..
Christmas is 365 days a year at our house..
And that is my Christmas story..
