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Topic: Poor (10/25/04)
TITLE: There May Not Be Any Christmas This Year By Cyndy McNaul-Nelson 10/29/04 |
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Meat was a scarcity sometimes. The folks would make a big adventure for us children of fishing at a creek in some pasture with hundreds of bullheads being the only catch. When hunting season opened, my uncles and Dad brought gunnysacks full of rabbits. We had our meat for the winter.
For a treat every afternoon, Mom placed a small amount of fresh cow’s milk in a pastel colored tea set. My sister’s teacup was blue and mine, pink. Adding to the treat, Mom used food coloring to tint our milk the same color as our teacups. That tea set now resides in my sister’s home.
My father, deceased since 1969, farmed about 240 acres. He was in his mid-twenties when he started having serious heart attacks. The couple of years of draught weighed heavy on his shoulders. Crops harvested in those two years were slim and in poor condition, causing lower prices for the grain. I often think of the struggle he endured feeding his family, while farming to feed the world at around $1.60 a bushel of corn; the same price it has always been since the Great Depression to this day. (Save the farmer, buy Ethanol and Soy Diesel.)
Harvest time in good years is completed by the first part of November. Christmas was a season to be thankful for what we had. That’s how the folks taught us and their training in our short years had taken root. For those two years of depressed Christmas seasons, Mom seated us on the couch and said, “I’m sorry, kids, there may not be a Christmas this year.”
We didn’t whimper or cry. My siblings and I felt the seriousness of the financial lack and Dad’s declining health. Even in my younger years, God placed a measure of courage and faith into my small heart. God was training me early not to get attached to material things. I knew I would have to put on a brave smile, when returning to school after Christmas vacation. My classmates always had a time of show and tell about the gifts they received. It was difficult in the good years to show and tell my five-dollar gift, as compared to all the bicycles, Barbie dolls, and hula-hoops. Yes, we were poor and we knew it!
Our Christmas celebrations were always scheduled on Christmas Eve night. Out of Mom’s monthly grocery allotment of twenty dollars, she served hot dogs with roasted marshmallows for desert. It was a kid’s delightful treat. God made sure Christmas came to our house, as we prepared to celebrate Christ in our hearts. A box was hand delivered to us, filled with neat toys and a phonograph that first Christmas season. It came from an Army buddy of Dad’s. Celebrations during the next season took place, because my folks walked the fields picking ears of corn that the mechanical picker missed. They garnered enough bushels of corn to buy a few materials to make us gifts that year. These are now treasured memories beyond monetary value.
We still have hot dogs for the Christmas Eve meal at Mama ‘Rene’s house. It’s a treat for the grand and great-grand children, as well as reminding us of the two Christmas seasons that almost were not. My siblings and I, as older adults, have taken the positions not to buy gifts for one another. We choose to meet around Mama ‘Rene’s table of plenty to celebrate Christ in our hearts. We read scripture, give testimonies of God’s provisions through the year, and pray for one another. During the last Christmas get-together, our prayer time lasted four hours. Then we played table games.
I often meditate on those two depressed Christmas seasons. God never sets me on the couch to inform me He doesn’t have enough resources to meet my needs. He asks me to trust Him, the way my folks taught me to have faith. Yes, we were poor and we knew it! But by the same measure, we have God’s faithfulness and that we know full well!