I know what I’m fixing to get for Christmas.
I know what I’m fixing to get for Christmas.
About the first Christmas I remember was one back in 1949 when I got a little sack of shiny new marbles, an orange and two jawbreakers.
They were lying there underneath the tree, all together, and I knew they were for me. At least I knew the marbles were for me because that’s what I had asked for. The orange and the jawbreakers were a Christmas bonus.
I immediately ate the orange and the jawbreakers were gone before noon, but the marbles lasted a little longer than that. They came in a little leather sack, polished and shiny. They were all so beautiful that it took me a whole day to pick out which one was going to be my shooter. Then I was ready to play some Ringer.
To do that you have to lag at a line about ten feet away with your shooter to see who gets first shot. After that all the opponents (two or more) put six marbles in the middle of a circle drawn in the dirt. Whoever wins the lag gets first shot from the edge of the circle. The object of the game is to use your shooter to knock the other marbles out of the circle. If you knock one out it belongs to you and you continue to shoot, but if you fail to knock one out of the circle the position of “shooter” passes on to the next player.
You can play for fun or you can play for keeps, and although playing for fun was fun, playing for keeps included suspense as well as fun.
By the time the new year arrived I had lost all my marbles.
I learned some valuable lessons at that tender young age. I learned that most of the sweet comestible things we get for Christmas don’t ever last long, but most importantly, I learned that if you gamble you are more apt to lose than win. But in spite of those lessons it still wasn’t the last time I gobbled up all my goodies and lost all my marbles.
About the worst Christmas I remember was back in 1961 when I was in the military and got to pull duty instead of going home for Christmas like everybody else. Somebody had to guard the post and it was the lot that I drew.
So there I was on Christmas Eve night in an empty barracks with no Christmas lights or decorative cheer to be seen or heard. Later on I drifted over to the company mess hall where I found that the remainder of the skeleton crew had gathered, and someone had smuggled in some Christmas cheer of the liquid sort, and we few good men commenced to celebrate.
What I got for Christmas the next morning was my turn at walking guard duty in the cold.
The lessons I learned from that Christmas was that a sack of marbles, an orange and two jawbreakers weren’t too bad after all, and that being home for Christmas was a wonderful gift in itself.
I’ll be home for Christmas this year celebrating the gift of life and the grace of our Lord, the greatest gifts anybody is ever fixing to get.