What was Christmas like for you when you were a kid?” Don asked.
“We didn’t celebrate Christmas. We didn’t believe in God,” I answered.
“Lots of people celebrate Christmas who don’t believe in God,” Don said. “You mean you didn’t do anything at all about Christmas?”
“No—oh, I remember once a girlfriend of one of my uncles gave me a present. It was a little bottle of hand lotion. I’d never had anything like that before. It seemed like such a grown-up gift, and I was so proud of it, that I decided not to use it so it would last forever.”
“Did it last forever?”
“No. That night I hid it under my bed and it froze. The next morning when I woke up and looked for my wonderful treasure, there was nothing left but broken glass and frozen hand lotion. I didn’t even get to use one drop,” I sighed. “What were your Christmases like when you were a little boy?”
“Awful. My folks were too cheap to buy my sister or me any presents. One year I hung up my stocking for Santa Claus to fill. I wanted a baseball more than anything in the world, and when I saw something big and round in the toe of my stocking on Christmas morning, I thought I’d gotten my baseball. But it was an orange. I hate oranges to this day.
He was quiet a moment. “If my folks had been too poor to buy gifts, I could have understood. But even if you’re poor, you can still make toys for your kids. I was just cheap labor to them. I worked harder than any hired hand ever did on that ranch. I earned my own living from the time I was ten years old, and as soon as I was old enough to drive I saved money to buy an old pickup truck and I ran away from home and headed for Alaska. It was as far away from Texas as I could get.”
“What happened to your family?” I asked.
“I guess they are still on the ranch. My sister got married as soon as she could, to get away from home,” he said.
“Do you think you’ll ever see them again?”
“No. Cry, my folks are—” he sighed. “They are bad medicine. My dad drinks, and my mother is—well, she’s real bad. My sister and I got away from them as soon as we could. I think of myself as an orphan because I never had real parents. I wasn’t a son, I was free labor. You’d do me a favor by never talking about my childhood or my family again. I’d like to forget everything that ever happened to me before I met you. You’re the only good thing that ever happened to me.”
It was our first Christmas together, and I wanted it to be special. For the first time in my life I had someone of my very own to give a present to.
I started decorating too early, but I was too excited to wait any longer. Our Christmas tree was up and decorated on the last day of November.
I shopped for hours to find a special gift for my husband, but nothing seemed right until one day I was looking at men’s shirts and I found the answer. I would make him a Cherokee chief shirt! I bought a pale blue shirt and yards of brightly colored ribbon. At home I sewed the ribbons onto the shirt with tiny stitches. I slipped it on and twirled around. The red, yellow, blue and green ribbons flew out around me in a rainbow of color. He would love it! A chief’s shirt! I was sure he had never had one before, and I proudly wrapped it and placed it gently under our tree.
Don placed his gifts under the tree, too, and I shook, pinched and squeezed each of them until the Christmas paper was wrinkled and the bows were loose.
He scolded me and threatened to hide them if I didn’t leave them alone, but I couldn’t walk past the gifts without giving one of them a jab with my finger.
“You should let me open them now. What if something happened and I died before Christmas? I would never know what you gave me!”
But Don would only laugh and add more tape to the gifts.
On Christmas Eve we sat in the dark, watching the lights twinkle on the tree and listening to Christmas carols from the stereo.
In my heart was great loneliness and longing for my friends back home. An occasional tear trickled down my cheeks. When the stereo played “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” the trickle turned into a river, and I buried my face in my hands and cried.
Don knew what was wrong without asking and left me alone with my attack of homesickness.
I was just getting down to some real crying when I felt the house tremble. My tears were quickly forgotten and my heart froze.
“What’s that!” I whispered.
“It’s just a little earth tremor,” Don said.
The house shook again and the dishes rattled in the cupboard and a window cracked.
“It’s an earthquake!” I shouted. Grabbing one of my presents I leaped into the middle of our bed. “We’re going to be killed! I told you something would happen! Give me my presents now!”
The house gave a hard shake and the Christmas tree lights went out. I was left standing in the middle of the bed with a half-opened gift in my hands. There was a deep silence as we waited to see if there were going to be any more tremors or if the ground was going to open up and swallow us alive.
The light flickered back on, and Don switched on a few lamps. He pulled the half-opened gift out of my hands and started to put it back under the tree.
“Good grief! What on earth?” he exclaimed and I followed him over to the tree.
Standing in a pile of pine needles was a scraggly stick with lights and baubles draped on it. I had put my tree up too early, and it had dried out. The earthquake had shaken every needle off the tree. We now had the ugliest Christmas tree in the whole world! Homesickness was forgotten as we burst into laughter.
We decided to open our gifts instead of waiting until morning. Don handed me three packages, and I ripped them open eagerly. Inside the first one was a silver cross on a chain. I put it around my neck before I opened the other two. The second package held a tiny whale he had carved from wood, and the last gift was a fuzzy pink robe.
“Thank you. They are wonderful gifts!” I said holding the whale he had carved and pulling on the pretty, warm robe. “I like them all very much. Now you must open your gift!” I handed him his present and waited eagerly as he opened it.
“What a nice—” He held it up and let the colored ribbons dangle down the front and back of the shirt. “It’s very nice—what is it?”
“It’s a Cherokee chief’s shirt!” I said and helped him put it on.
He looked in the mirror. “I’m not a Cherokee chief.”
“You don’t like it, do you?” I was disappointed. “I keep forgetting you aren’t an Indian. I should have bought you a present for a white man.”
“I like it, really I do. It’s just that I’ve never had a shirt like this before and I was surprised. It’s real nice,” he said, starting to take it off.
Then he looked at my face and put it back on. “It’s such a nice shirt I was going to save it for good, but I like it so much I think I’ll wear it right now, for Christmas Eve.” He looked at himself again in the mirror.
“I can cut the ribbons off,” I offered.
“No, you went to a lot of work to sew them on. You leave it the way it is. I’m probably the only man in Alaska with a chief’s shirt. In fact, I’d bet on it.” He smiled. “Merry Christmas, Crying Wind. I love you.”
“Merry Christmas,” I answered. I wondered if I should say “I love you” back to him, but I didn’t think I could ever make my tongue say those words as long as I lived.
We took one last look at our pitiful tree and went to bed. Around my neck I wore the silver cross, and I slid the little whale under my pillow.
It was the best Christmas I had ever had.
Taken from Crying Wind/My Searching Heart by Crying Wind, published by Indian Life Books and can be purchased through Indian Life.
