It’s no secret that I grew up poor with a hard working hippy single mother at the helm of our often listing ship. For some reason, Christmas time always makes me revisit those days in my mind. It snowed here last night- only a little skiff- but as I walked to work and it fell lightly around me I found myself thinking of the Christmas’ of my youth. There were many years that I just assumed that Christmas wouldn’t apply to us as we simply didn’t have the resources to pull it off. It’s not that I thought Santa didn’t like us, it’s that I knew he didn’t exist. Is it just me or do poor kids stop believing in him years sooner than kids raised in a higher income bracket??? We were also not religious and therefore had no problem skipping the whole “birth of baby jesus” hoopla. Christmas isn’t a religious holiday for me- in fact in my mind, seeing as more people have been slaughtered and more wars started over conflicting religious beliefs, I have no problem saying we’d all be better off without it. Faith yes. Organized religion? No.
But that’s a whole other post with a whole other pile of hate mail…..
So, when Christmas rolls around every year and those little Salvation Army buckets come out I can’t help but feel a little nostalgic. We were welfare kids. We had more than one Salvation Army Christmas. I’m sure my mom was a little leery that first year- unsure whether the kid’s party would be fraught with bible stories and frankincense & myrrh- but she was bound and determined to swallow her pride for our sake. We walked into a room full of kids that looked just like us- kids trying to look tough and nonchalant but secretly a little eager and a little excited. I remember the uniforms- those Salvation army uniforms that looked so official- and I thought I smelled a rat. I remember wondering how long it would be until we were asked to leave- probably when the bibles came out.
I can tell you from first hand experience that despite their name, that Army wasn’t after my Salvation. They just smiled and handed me cocco and cookies and we sang carols. Not hymns, we sang carols. They made us feel like welcome arrivals, like they had been waiting for us. We had several Christmas’ with the help of the Salvation Army and they will always hold a special place in my heart. As an adult, I always put money in every single one of those those kettles that I see (believe me, the one at the liquor store does well) and I always get a lump in my throat when the person jingling the bell says “thank you” because it’s I who is thankful.
Right before writing this post I dropped off a bag of toys to “Toys for Tots” who distribute them via organizations like Big Brothers & Sisters, the YMCA, the local shelters and the Salvation Army. The pile of gifts, which was growing by the second, was easily as wide and high as 2 full sized pickups, side by side. As I stood waiting for my turn to add my toys I was thinking that dozens of years ago in a pile of gifts just like this one, there was- against all odds in my young mind-a toy for me brought by a stranger who stood in a line just as I was doing now.
Ya big softie!