One of the first years I experienced the true Christmas spirit — the spirit of giving — was the Christmas of 1974.
I was heavily involved in Cub Scouts when I was a kid. In 1974 our troop had a toy and food drive for needy families in Northwest Indiana.
I always heard from my parents how fortunate we were to have what we had and that I was lucky we weren’t poor people. Both my parents worked, and we lived in the typical middle-class home in a Chicago suburb.
All through November and early December, our Cub Scout troop solicited canned food donations and toy donations for needy families.
I never knew where Dad and all the Scout leaders found the families to give these donations. I took for granted they knew the poor families that needed them, and I was happy with that.
How else could an 10-year-old explain it?
A couple of weeks before Christmas we had boxes and boxes of food and toys to deliver.
I remember helping load the huge station wagon on crisp, freezing morning. What I especially remember was that it was still dark out as we made an assembly line, passing box to box to the next person in line.
It seemed like hours that we were loading. My thermos of hot chocolate had worn off a long time ago.
The cars were so fully-loaded there was barely enough room for the kids. We were packed in “like sardines,” as Mom would say.
We proceeded on our way to the “poor” area like a train of cars. As we slowly drove into sections of Hammond and Gary, IN, I could see what my parents had always talked about.
Many of the homes were in poor condition, falling apart, boards over windows, siding falling off. Many didn’t even have Christmas trees.
It seemed like an endless journey. We would stop at a home, get out a turkey, a bag of canned goods, a basket of candy and a bag of toys at each house.
Several of us whiny kids began complaining about being hungry, wanting the candy, wanting to eat, wanting to go home.
Our fathers kept hushing us. As we came to the last house and climbed up the rickety porch steps I could hear a woman crying.
As we knocked on the door I heard a man shout, “Quiet, they’re here now.”
The man slowly opened the door and invited us to come inside. In the front room there was a couch and two chairs. No TV, no radio. Just an old couch and two chairs.
It was freezing in the house. I could see my breath as I coughed and covered my mouth the way Dad always told me to. If I didn’t, I would hear about it.
We began to hand over the bags and the man in the home said, “Come here, boys, and help these men out.”
Two small boys wearing flannel shirts and dirty grey sweat pants and white socks that were grey came to the doorway and helped pick up bags of food. Their faces were dirty and had streaks on them as if they had been crying.
When they saw the bags they smiled big. They all thanked us for doing such a nice thing.
As we walked down the creaking stairs, one of the dads said, “My God it was cold in that house. Those people didn’t have any electric or heat.”
“That was awful sad,” another dad said.
We were told to go to the car and wait.
My friend’s dad went back to the door and knocked. I saw one of the boys peek out through the front window.
As the door opened the man came out onto the porch. All of our dads went back onto the porch and talked with the man for a few minutes. They came back down from the porch and began talking again.
They all looked at each other and were checking to see how much money they had on them.
My friend, Jay, about as patient as any 10-year-old boy could be in a 30-degree car waiting as dads stood around and talked, reached over the seat and honked the horn.
“Come on!” he hollered.
All the dads had that ready-to-kill look on their faces.
The boy peeked out the window again and the front door opened again.
“It’s OK. It’s nothing,” one of the dads shouted.
Finally, they got into the cars, and we began driving away.
Our caravan pulled into the grocery store again, and the dads got out, talked more. Then, one by one they took turns using the pay phone.
Modern conveniences of cellphones were years away from reality.
“What in the heck is going on?” I wondered.
After a while longer, we left the store and the caravan pulled in at a big office.
Two of the dads got out and came to the cars getting money from the other dads and went into the office.
After they came out, we sat and waited for what seemed like hours.
Finally, a big truck pulled up alongside the station wagon and we began to follow.
The truck drove us all the way back to the last poor family’s home.
“What are we doing? I want to go home. I’m hungry,” one of the kids said.
Our caravan pulled up at the house again. The man from the truck went around to the back of the house. The boy peeked out from the window again and the front door opened.
Then, the porch light came on. The man from the truck came back out front, got into his truck and left.
The man came out of the home with his wife and shook my friend’s dad’s hand.
He was smiling.
As our dads got back into the cars the man hollered out, “God bless you and Merry Christmas.”
As we drove away I could see a tear on my friend’s dad’s cheek.
I wiped the steam off the window and looked back at the house and saw the little boy at the window waving.
It’s an image I have never been able to get out of my head.
It wasn’t until years later I realized the family had no electricity and our dads had rallied a collection of money together to have that family’s electric turned back on.
As we left, one of the dads said, “Nobody should be without heat at Christmas.”
In my childhood, the Christmas of 1974 was a landmark year. I learned the true spirit of Christmas.
It was my last Christmas together with my parents before their divorce, and it was the year I discovered there was more to Christmas than getting gifts.
I always wondered whatever happened to that family. How did they end up in those circumstances? Did they ever overcome their problems? I left it in God’s hands.
Some 50 years later I realize the gifts of being together with my family, in a warm home, with a good meal and thanking God for our blessings are all the gifts I ever need at Christmas.
Merry Christmas, and may God bless you all this holiday season.
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