THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER

I've been lucky enough growing up to have seen both ends of the spectrum of financial status. Though we were never rich, I would call a good portion of our lives "comfortable." But then there were the times when things were really hard. All the moving for my mother's health, sometimes left us precariously close to "poor."

As a child, you don't notice your financial status till it comes to Christmas time. Only then do you realize, you are not quite like your friends when you start comparing what you got for Christmas. Prior to that, you ate enough, had clothes to cover you, and toys to play with and friends who never noticed. Nothing made you realize you were different.

When I was 12 we moved back to Ohio from Florida. My father had a construction company and he stayed behind in Key West to "shut down" the business. It was the only time we were ever separated as a family.

Mother had received a small inheritance and bought a tiny trailer for us to live in while we waited for Dad to join us. What I wasn't aware of was that my parents were undergoing serious marriage problems. Mother started talking about rekindling a relationship with her old college professor who had a crush on her and Dad kept putting off coming to Ohio and was rumored to be seeing a family friend visiting from Ohio.

One day Mother who was really doing poorly health wise, asked my brother and I that if she and Dad ever got a divorce, who would we want to live with? My brother thought a minute, then said he would live with Mother. I did not hesitate as I was a Daddy's girl and said I would want to live with my father.

That answer literally crushed my mother. I was her baby. She had desperately wanted a daughter and now that same daughter had just laid her heart bare with one sentence. She barely was able to say, "Well then I guess we won't be getting a divorce." Not knowing the pain I had caused, I was just grateful that a split was not happening, at least not right then.

However, I was worried by the conversation so I wrote my Dad a letter explaining what Mother had been discussing and that he need to come home quickly. She did not know I had written it and Dad never acknowledged it but soon we got a call that he would be coming home for good at Christmas.

We were so excited Dad was coming but Mother warned us that Christmas would be very skimpy that year. I didn't care, my Daddy was coming home. He did arrive a few days before Christmas and all was good again in my 12 year old world. That I was probably getting nothing for Christmas didn't matter.

However Christmas night, I kept hearing noises out side. It was a hammering sound with occasional profanity from what I recognized as my Dad's voice. Finally I went to sleep to the tapping and cursing.

In the morning, my brother and I played with the dime store toys in our stockings thinking that was going to be all we got. We were delightfully surprised to find one gift for each of us under the meager tree. I wish I could remember what Jimmy got but I can't for I was blown away by my present.

One of our neighbor's hamster had babies and in the cage that my dad had spent part of the night constructing out of donated lumber and wire, were two to the cutest baby hamsters imaginable. For $3.50 the neighbors had supplied the hamsters, water bottle and of course the dreaded wheel.

Dad had bruised fingers and a black fingernail from building the cage. He never was a hammer and nail type of guy. He was the engineer in his construction company so the cage was way beyond his comfort zone. That explained the cursing.

That night when I went to sleep, my hand were curved like they were still holding the little hamsters who were now racing noisily around on their wheel. I had not put them down all day. Never in my 70 years have I had a better Christmas or better present.

Much later when I was in my mid thirties and after a family Christmas dinner, my Dad came up behind me as I washed dishes. He slid a dish in the water and said quietly in my ear, " I got your letter."

This totally confused me for I had not written him in years but then I realized he was finally acknowledging the letter I wrote him when I was 12 years old.

He then added, "I just want you to know your letter is what brought me home that year." I have no idea why he chose that time, over 20 years later, to tell me, but that ranked as the second best Christmas ever.

What Christmas stands out in your memory?