By Mary (Thompson) Savage – Terrace, B.C.
Our family moved from Northern Ontario to Orillia during the summertime. My older brother, Bill, was in Grade 4 at Westward School. My younger two brothers, David and George, were at a different school, and Patric, the baby, was five and still at home.
It was near Christmastime and we didn’t have a tree. On the last school day before Christmas, Bill asked the teacher if he could have the schoolroom Christmas tree. The teacher said yes and removed all the decorations. The tree was small, so Bill brought it home.
Meanwhile, David was on the same mission at his school, unbeknownst to the rest of the family. His teacher also agreed to give him the class tree. It was larger than Bill’s tree and although David was smaller than Bill, he dragged the tree home.
On Christmas Eve, mom said we didn’t have enough decorations for a big tree so we decorated the smaller tree. It was set up in the dining room in front of the window. We set up our stockings under the tree because we could only have them when we sneaked downstairs early Christmas morning to see what Santa had left us.
Santa didn’t have new address?
When we got downstairs, the small tree looked like a Charlie Brown tree! There were only about three or four coloured balls and the tinsel was scarce. All that was under the tree were five stockings filled with goodies. We were five very disappointed children.
Mom tried her best to console us while we had breakfast, saying Santa must have needed the decorations for another family – and we had moved so maybe he forgot where we were.
Us kids moped around then emptied our stockings to see what trinket was hidden among the apple, orange, nuts, and candy, and the mate to the new stocking stuffed in the toe.
Dad gathered up a bowl of mixed nuts and told Patric to go down to the cellar and get the hammer to crack nuts. Pat was pretty blue and didn’t want to go, but dad cajoled him along. He wasn’t down very long before he was hollering, “Dad! Dad! Come down! Everyone come down!”
When we got downstairs, the Christmas tree that David got was in the corner behind a table. There were toys and presents on the floor, more presents stacked on the table, and cardboard houses made from shredded wheat boxes were set up like a little town. There were trucks and cars and a doll for me. It looked glorious!
That was the best Christmas ever.
