By Victor Knowles
What can a seven-year old boy buy for his mother for Christmas with only a dollar bill in his threadbare pocket? That was the dilemma that confronted me a few days before Christmas in 1952 in the little town of Hamburg, Iowa.
Our family did not have much of this world’s goods back then. Dad was a minister and we did not even have a home of our own to live in. We lived in the crowded quarters in the back of the church building. Because we could not afford to buy each other a Christmas present, we would draw names each Christmas. Then you would buy a present for the person whose name you had drawn.
At last, the time came for the annual drawing of names. Dad cupped the carefully folded pieces of paper in his slender hands. I selected one of the folded slips. Slowly I unfolded it and saw the word “Mother.” I looked at her shyly and smiled – and then quickly looked at everyone else and smiled at them too, so they wouldn’t guess whose name I had drawn.
Dad reached into his well-worn billfold and carefully doled out a dollar bill to each of my three sisters and myself. Saturday afternoon, I took my dollar and strolled down to Wiig’s Five and Dime store. Snow crunched beneath my rubber boots and the cold air turned my cheeks red. I must have spent half the afternoon trudging up and down the wooden aisles looking for a present for my mother. Finally, I spotted it – a Christmas record. Happily, I made my purchase and ran all the way home.
But my gladness turned to sadness when Dad helped me wrap my present. “Son,” he said in his kindest fatherly voice, “I don’t know that your mother would like to hear ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.’” My heart sank. “Maybe something else would be better?”
What did I know about music? Dad was the music buff in our house. So I bundled back up and stomped back to the Five and Dime in the gathering darkness. “Stupid Christmas!” I muttered. “Dad just doesn’t want to think of Santa Claus kissing mother!”
When I got to the store, I exchanged the wretched record for a bottle of perfume. Then I sulked all the way home, kicking clods of frozen slush in the air. “Christmas stinks!” I shouted.
But when I saw the sparkle in my mother’s eye when she opened the present, I knew I had made the right choice.
On Sunday morning, I sat by my mother in church as my father preached behind the big oak pulpit. I could smell the perfume she had dabbed behind her ears. It smelled great! Her eyes were glowing as she kept her eyes fixed on my father. Dad was preaching from Matthew 2, and how the wise men presented the Christ child with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then explained that frankincense was something like … perfume!
I sat bolt upright. I had managed to buy my mother a true Christmas gift! Quite frankly, I was no longer incensed about my gift! Christmas didn’t stink anymore. It smelled good. It smelled great!
I snuggled up close to mom. That dollar perfume now smelled like Chanel No. 5. Without taking her eyes off her man in the pulpit, she squeezed my hand. The incense of our worship ascended beyond the vaulted church ceiling, into the highest heavens.
Condensed from Christmas Tonight: Sixteen Seasonal Stories © 1993 by Victor Knowles, Crosley Field.
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