The Sentinel, Christmas Memories #2 201203

      

      The first year we were married we were separated at Christmas. I was overseas and Joyce found this Christmas card to send me. It was a nice card. It had Santa on the front cover with the caption, “Ho, ho, ho, I know what you want for Christmas.” Inside the card it said, “Ho, ho, ho, you’re not going to get it!”
      Joyce and I were married for 5 years before we had our first Christmas together. I was always on cruse and far away. I had reenlisted in the navy and was in the Naval Technical Training Center in Millington, Tennessee. We were living in a nice mobile home. I watched our daughter Annie while Joyce shopped for a giant Christmas tree to celebrate our first year together for the holiday. The night was cold and slightly rainey and when she brought her selected tree home we put it in the hallway because it had tile instead of carpeting and we could let it shed all the rain on it before it went into the carpeted living room. The tree was tied up so we had no idea how big it would be when we removed the ties. It was a beautiful tree and looked so nice during the season. By the first week of January when we removed all the ornaments and lights it was time to remove the tree, but there was a problem. The tree branches had sagged quite a lot and the tree would not go out either door. The only tool we had was a serrated knife. I worked for hours trying to saw off branches, but with little progress. I finally decided to quit and just shove the tree out the door with all my might. By then the tree needles were well dried and besides raking scratches on both sides of the door the needles flew in every direction inside, not outside. It took a year or more to finally find and remove all of them.
      My mother told me this story. I was less than 5 years old. Dad in his usual mode bought me some nice presents; while my uncle Kenny who was out of work, stopped at a construction site and picked up small blocks cut from 2x4 lumber and put them in a sack and gave them to me. Mom said I spent the day playing with the blocks and neglected the nice toys dad had bought me.