Christmas stories by odmmb (unedited)

Thinking about the old well in gram-ma's back yard, the wooden bucket swinging from a rope, lowering the bucket down into the water below, leaning over the edge looking way, way down there to see small self reflected back...cranking the squeaking pulley back up with a bucket full of clean, clear, cold, fresh water...leaning over the bucket full of water to see if face still there....yes! there it is. Me in the water.... always in the water.
at the bottom of the well
in the bucket
in puddles after a rain
in the creek, the river, the spring,
in the horses watering trough,
and even in the soupy slop poured
out for pigs...
And in my slop too! (My Soup I Had For Lunch)!
and wait! Let me see...yep! there it is...in my
coffee!!!
From little bitty baby
To granny old and gray
Reflections always follow
They never go away.
-odmmb


Add a litttle story for Christmas here,
Give us all a little Christmas cheer---
We'll love you forever and call you "sweetie,"
we might even knit some booties to warm your feetie,
We'll hang your stocking up on a star
Santa might bring you a Saturn car!
With keys dangling musically from your belt,
most yummy goodies you ever did smelt
will waft across your nose
and lead you up close
to heaven's gate where the angels are host
to the biggest Christmas party you ever did see
One for the bla ditty dopplerdude and one for me!
So put your story here for all to see
'n you'll fall up the chimmney with glop itty glee!
-//\\-odmmb



It was early Christmas morning, just breaking daylight.
Daddy was walking along, almost stumbling as he hunched
against the cold.
It had rained almost all night and the whole world was
still dripping wet. He was on his way to the old general store,
hoping to find some way to earn some money.
His heart had almost broken when he'd looked at his
sleeping family a while ago.
It seemed to him that they looked hungry even in their sleep.
He, along with the whole country,
was having a hard struggle these days in
the grips of the Great Depression. No jobs. No money.
No nothing, it seemed.
So here he was, making one-last-ditch effort to
find a way to provide a Christmas dinner for his children.
He had delighted them yesterday when he took them out
in the woods to find a tree to cut and drag back into
the house, and let them decorate it with any old
scraps they could find.
Now if only he could earn enough to buy a chicken
and some flour, they could make a big pot of
chicken and dumplings, and have a wonderful
Christmas dinner.
By the time he reached the stretch of sidewalk
that led past a few other buildings and up to
Hank's store, it was broad open daylight,
but nobody was up and out yet.
He was all hunched over against the cold and gazing
at the ground as he walked or he never would have seen it.
But there it was! In plain sight.
Right in the middle of the sidewalk in front of him.
A five dollar bill!
He stopped, heart pounding, and looked.
Just stood there looking at it.
He could see it was still wet from the rain and
was stuck to the concrete, and had been walked on.
He was afraid that if he tried to pick it up, it would tear,
but he gingerly scraped a corner loose with his
fingernail and almost holding his breath, he scraped and pulled until he
had it safely in his hand. He then opened his jacket,
and carefully placed it against the front of his shirt,
then closed his jacket back, pressing gently against it.
He sat down on the edge of the sidewalk and spent
the next thirty minutes working on drying it out
and thinking of what he would buy. It never
crossed his mind to wonder where that five dollar bill
came from. Somehow his heart just automatically
knew that it was there for his children.
For the Christmas presents they would find under
their tree when they woke up. For the steaming
chicken and dumplings and even a sweet potato pie
they would have for christmas dinner.
He blew on the five dollar bill one last time,
took a deep breath, jumped up and almost ran the
rest of the way to Hank's store. He now had enough
money not only for a wonderful dinner but also
enough to buy presents for everyone!
A five dollar bill was hard to get
back in those days, but it would buy an awful lot, too!
-//\\-odmmb



'Twas The Night Before...No, really....
It was about 11:30 p.m. on Christmas eve night.
I'd just got home from work. The kids,
two six-year-olds and a seven year old,
were all in bed asleep.
I was only nineteen years old at the time--
-I was the oldest child still at home and the only
person in the house with a job of any kind at the time.
I made ten dollars a week working the snack bar
at the old SkyChief theater. Our family had been
in a down-in-luck bad streak for a bout a year,
doing the very best we could with whatever we
could scrape up. We had managed to get all the
kids a pair of roller skates each, some christmas
candy, and a couple of other little 5&10 cent store
things. But we didn't have a Christmas Tree!
We lived in town at the time, there were no
woods around to find one in, and we didn't have
enough money to buy one.
As soon as I got home from work to stay with
the kids, my parents took off. They walked about
a half-mile to an all-night market, telling me only
that they'd be back as soon as they could.
What did they come back with? You guessed it!
A Christmas Tree! Miracle of Miracles!
It might've looked like a scraggly old flea-bitten,
left-over thing that had it's price cut down to
only fifty cents to some people, but to me it
couldn't have been more beautiful or more perfect.
I think we had more fun decorating that tree than
any I can remember, except for one when I was
about six years old. We felt so happy and lucky!
We had a tree, and presents and we still had plenty
of biscuits and gravy to eat, too!
While we were decorating the tree, we thought
we heard some kind of thumping sound on the front porch. "Nah....there'd not be anybody there this late," we said,
but finally we went and looked out anyway and
nobody was in sight, but there was a big box
full of groceries there on the porch about half
way between the steps and the door.
Santa?
We were embarrassed that someone did that,
but although our pride was hurt we were still
grateful just the same, and very happy to have all
that good food! It was a wonderful Christmas!
I'll never forget the joy in that old house the next day.
All the kids running to the Christmas tree in pure Wonder,
then noisily rolling back and forth on the old wooden floor
in their pajamas, trying out their new skates,
gleefully falling and laughing and eating all kinds
of goodies from that box.
Yes. It was Santa.


It was great-granny's idea to have her birthday on Christmas.
She was born way back yonder on the backside of the swamp
in amongst the boondocks, and would've died if an old
gator hunter named Orrie hadn't come along and found her.
He was skimming along in his little dory up one
little stream and down another, across one litle marshy
swamp and then another and looking for gators when he
saw a small hut built on a platform up ahead.
He figured somebody lived there and maybe he could
get a little bite to eat and a little gossip talk to go with it.
He pulled his little boat up close to the dock alongside
the platform. He could hear the sound of a baby crying
inside.
"Yup, somebody's home for sure," he thought with a smile of anticipation.
The door of the little hut was wide open. The baby was
in a small home-made crib beside a bunk on the far wall.
Nobody else was in sight.
Orrie went over to the baby and as he approached she
stopped crying, fully expecting to be picked up and
tended to. And Ernie, being an old hand at baby tending,
did just that.
He was sure somebody would come tearing in at any minute,
worried about the baby, but nobody ever did.
He picked her up, found an old dry rag for a diaper
and changed her. Then he found some food in a little storage bin and fed her. Then he bounced her on his knee, sung a
few little made-up songs to her, then took her out
for a little look-around on the platform, and still
nobody showed up.
It was early in the morning when he'd first spied
the hut and found the baby, and he waited until almost dark.
Finally he couldn't wait any longer. He had to get home.
He didn't have a pencil or any paper, so he found an
old piece of charcoal in a little stove contraption
just outside the hut, and scratched a message on the floor
telling where he was going with the baby.
But nobody ever came looking for her.
Orrie went back almost everyday for three weeks,
then periodically to where he'd found her thinking maybe
somebody would show up, but nobody ever did.
That's how granny got to be raised by Orrie and his
wife who took good care of her all of their life and even
let her pick her own birthday when she got a little older.
Orrie said she was like the little baby Jesus,
because nobody knew exactly what day he was born, either,
so granny picked Christmas day because she felt a real
kinship with Jesus and because
it was her favorite day of the year.

-//\\-odmmb