One Christmas Orange

Sei deMarks asked:


It was the Christmas after my father died.  My mother had dealt with his death and having to provide for 6 children with a stoicism that was unparallelled.  On top of that, the first week in November she had been let go from her job at the poultry plant where she and her sister both worked.

I was six years old with five older brothers.  Mostly they ignored me which I welcomed, because when they did pay me some attention, either I or my dolly would suffer some damage and my Mother would deal out heavy blows to them.  I was the baby of the family and though not spoiled, everyone took pains to insure that I was happy, as happy as I could be considering how poor we were.

My mother worked and worked and worked.  I don’t know what she did, but enough food was on the table and me and my brothers continued to go to school and church.  Though our cloths were patched, they were clean and ironed.

As November faded into December we began to gather in corners and discuss what we would get for Christmas.  In my mind I had a list which began with a brand new doll - the one I had, had been made by my mother.  I loved that doll but she was a poor girl’s rag doll, with no pretty clothes, in fact she was naked.

My mother saw and heard us whispering and giggling and called us to her.  As we gathered round, she began to explain, in a low sad voice, that we could not expect to get much for Christmas, times were hard.  My brothers nodded that they understood and slowly began to drift away.  I was not so convinced and asked "what about Santa,"  thinking surely he would not forget me and my list. My mother smiled sadly and said, Santa would come, but his gifts this year would be small ones.

Fast forward to Christmas day.  I awoke to a crisp bright morning in a bed still warm from where my mother had laid beside me.  She was already up and had killed and plucked two chickens which would be the bulk of our Christmas dinner.  I looked under our little Christmas tree with the homemade trimmings we had made as part of a school project.  There was no gift under the tree - not one.  I began to cry - blubber actually - that Santa had not bought us anything.  When my mother heard me she came from the kitchen with a big brown paper bag saying,  "come here y’all."  As we stepped up to her, she reached in the bag and gave each one of us a large orange and a Big Bob’s red and white candy cane.  As she handed these gifts out, she told us "no candy til after dinner."  Then she returned to the kitchen with all the good smells of roasting chicken, cornbread dressing and even sweet potato pie.

My brothers crowded out onto the front porch.  I watched  through a crack in the open door as they first began to peel and eat their oranges.  Tthen they cracked their candy canes against the wooden steps and ate the candy.   While they were crunching on the last morsels of candy, I quietly closed the front door and went and hid my orange and candy cane.  I knew them well.  If they knew I still had my orange and my candy, they would hound me to share with them and then eat them up.

When my mother called us in to dinner she did not have to ask my brothers about their  gifts.  Their hands smelled of orange and their lips were still red from the red of the candy cane.  They escaped a whipping, I guess because it was Christmas day.

We all ate my mother’s good dinner and didn’t feel like were missing anything as we pushed away from the table.  The afternoon went quickly,  I played with my dolly.  My mother carried a plate of chicken and dressing across the road to our elderly neighbor who was as poor as we, with the added burden of being semi-bedridden. My brothers chased each other round and round the house with ax handles trying to see if they could crack each other in the head.

We were all winding down after the day, in our sleeping clothes waiting for time to go to bed.  My mother had taken her favorite spot - her rocking chair in front of the fireplace.  She pulled me to her side and told me, "there is one more gift for you"  She got up and went to the bed,  reached under her pillow and pulled out a small package wrapped in shiny red paper.  She came back and sat down again and handed me the package.  I asked her "what is it."   With a smile she told me "look for yourself."  I tore into the package and inside was  a tiny white slip and  lacy pink dress.  She said "I thought your dolly might like a new Christmas  outfit."   With leftover fabric scraps, she had secretly sewn me a Christmas present - a pretty dress for my naked doll.

I then went over to the bed and reached under my pillow and pulled out the orange and candy I had hidden there. I bought them back, climbed up onto her lap and asked her to peel the orange.  She obliged, taking the orange peel off in one long narrow strip. She broke the orange in half and handed both halves to me, but I gave one of them back to her saying "Merry Christmas."  Her eyes began to shine and she said "thank you baby." She held me close as we rocked in the rocker and each ate our piece of orange.

Sixty years later I can still close my eyes and see that room, the soft gold of the fire in the fireplace, the scent of the sap burning, the piny odor of our little Christmas tree and the sweet perfume of citrus.  I’ve had many Christmas’s since then, with many expensive presents in expensive wrappings but none have been more special to me than the one with my mother when we shared one Christmas orange.

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