If I haven't mentioned it before, I'll mention it now. I grew up poor. Wait! Don't go. I have a point.
My dad had a stable job for the first eight years or so of my life as a computer operator when computers filled a room and took a week to run a payroll program. Eventually his job didn't exist anymore. Computers got smaller and operators left to make room for programmers. After he was laid off, he took employment at two jobs to try and make the money he made before. He worked all the time. He'd come home from one shift to eat dinner, give me, my four siblings and my mom hugs and leave for the next. I think he told me once he was going on 4-5 hours of sleep each night. Eventually the strain on him, his kids and his marriage caused him to explore some entrepreneurial ventures (yes, Amway was one of them). Unfortunately, their attempts at MLM, vending machines, craft sales and even a carpet cleaning business didn't pan out. My parents were hard workers but not shrewd at business. Their relationship had plenty of problems and once you add money issues on top of those ... well, you eventually get divorce.
It was around the time I was eight years old I began to become aware of money and how we didn't have much of it. My mom and dad tried not to let us catch on to our circumstances. But, kids are perceptive. We noticed our meals changing, our milk diluting and our clothes fraying. We saw our mother's eyes tire and our father's posture deflate. As the economy worsened and my parents did their best to feed us, we became nomadic. The first seven years of my life I lived in two houses: the one on Broadmore Street in SLC where I was born and then the one on Easter Avenue in Littleton, CO. The next 12 years I lived in 11. (Well, 10. One of them was someone's converted garage.) My mom was a wiz with making due with what she had. She made filling meals, repaired our clothes and, one year, made me a powder jacket that looked just like the other kids' their moms had bought retail. That it looked retail was important because I spent much of my time worrying about life, money and what other kids thought of me for 364 days of the year.
Yet, Christmas was always spectacular. Always.
I always got most of what was on my list. We always had a huge dinner. Our stockings were always stuffed and it seemed like we all got along. On Christmas, I never felt poor. It seemed like miracles always happened. Later in life I learned that my mom budgeted like a miser to make Christmas (and sometimes birthdays) very special. She gave up having her little luxuries so her kids could feel like normal kids once a year. She gave, sacrificed and served because I think she knew what Christmas meant. As a child, I think I absorbed what Christmas was really about from her.
When most of us had grown-up and moved out of the house, she met and married a man who had done pretty well for himself. One Christmas she flew me down to Arizona where she and three of my siblings lived at the time. We continued all the old traditions from our childhood: one present on Christmas Eve, reading of Luke 2, pinning our stockings to a chair so Santa would know where to put all our gifts, singing Christmas Carols at the piano, watching Mixed Nuts, etc. It was still a magical time even though, for the first time in her life, she had everything she wanted.
But she wasn't done. She knew that we all had plenty now. She knew that we were OK. So that particular Christmas Day, we loaded 20 cardboard boxes full of oranges, hygiene kits, beef jerky, a blanket and other food and good stuff into the cars and drove around Mesa handing them out to the homeless.
Christmas is always spectacular. Always.
Today, with my own family, we are setting our own traditions and, luckily, we haven't known a hard year yet. We do our best to participate in a number of Angel Kids and Sub for Santa programs. We look out for special instances where we can make someone's day merry and bright. I like to think that we'll continue to add to our growing traditions and, that as the kids get older, they'll appreciate what Christmas is more and more.
They say guys often marry someone like their own mom. Well, my wife and my mom couldn't be more different in about 100 ways but one thing they both know how to do is cheerfully serve others and look out for the people they love. This year will be no different. It's Christmas, after all.
