My wife and I had been married for only days more than a year. This was our first Christmas together away from our parents. I wanted this to be the best Christmas my wife had ever had, but on Navy pay what we wanted was not always what we got.
I studied catalogs from wherever I could locate them, but I couldn’t find anything I thought would be the perfect gift for my young wife. I kept trying to use this method because I had very little money and this seemed a way to buy something and pay for it somehow in the future. I found nothing. Christmas kept getting closer and I yet had no gift of any sort for my wife. What was I to do?
Procrastinating as long as possible, it was finally Christmas Eve, and I still had no gift for my wife, nor any idea of how to obtain anything. Finally I drove our 1953 Ford Sedan to Rose’s Department Store a short distance down Little Creek Road in Norfolk, Virginia from where we lived in our house trailer. I had the princely sum of $3.00 to my name. I must make do with that somehow. I had no more, nor any way to obtain any more.
I searched the store, one of the few yet open a few hours before midnight on Christmas Eve, but couldn’t find anything I thought worthy. Finally, in desperation, I selected three small porcelain statues of Angels at $1.00 each. I spent every penny we had, but it was the best I could do.
When I returned home, I carefully wrapped them, and the next morning my wife proclaimed them to be the best gifts she had ever received. Of course, I knew they were not, but we both knew it was the best we could do, and we were happy with that.
Yet today, nearly 52 years later, two of those three Angel statues still exist in this home. The same wife lovingly places them out as decorations each Christmas season. With a loving touch, and a quick dusting, they remain some of our most treasured decorations. Maybe they weren’t such a bad buy after all. After nearly 53 years, I’ve decided the wife wasn’t too bad of a bargain either.
No comments:
Post a Comment