By Bob Copperstone
I suppose most every family creates its own routine of visits to relatives on holidays.
Christmas Eve visitors at our house visitors usually were Mom’s brother and sister-in-law and their son and two daughters. Gary, the son, was one of my best friends while we were growing up.
His family had always had a rather rough time of it, I remember.
His dad was a rarely successful door-to-door salesman and was almost always on the road. Gary’s mother waited tables at the Wigwam Café and elsewhere, or had other clerking jobs almost all the time.
Somehow, though, her wages never seemed to trickle down much to the kids, but some of the relatives noted harshly that she herself always managed to be expensively well-dressed.
It was always a struggle to keep food on the children’s table, a roof over their heads, and clothes on their backs. But there was only a little money left for anything beyond necessities.
It always seemed to me that Gary’s parents were seldom home at their stark little rented half of a house in Wahoo.
Christmas Eve night was always my family’s gift-opening time. We children couldn’t wait until morning, and our parents gave up trying.
One such night sticks in my memory today.
Gary and I were about 7 or 8 years old. Santa had arrived as scheduled, and my sisters Rochelle and Janie and I had an almost-obscene pile of presents to open.
But Gary and his sisters each got one gift only. Gary opened his and took out a toy metal truck that, to my dismay, showed some previous owner’s playtime wear.
I was disappointed for Gary, and I hope I didn’t say anything the time, because he seemed to sluff it off. I stared down at the truck, then up at Gary’s face, looking for his reaction.
But he apparently was accustomed to low expectations, because his face was a blank mask. He merely sat the truck down and, without a word, turned his attention to everyone else’s’ gift-opening frenzy.
I don’t remember his sisters’ small gifts. I hope they weren’t used items, too.
That Christmas left a mark on me as I realized for the first time I might be luckier than some other kids.
I always thought it had to have left a mark on my late cousin/best friend Gary, but I guess I’ll never know now. To his credit, all his life I never once heard him speak bitterly toward his parents.
My heart went out to him that Christmas night.
But Gary didn’t mope or show the slightest sign of feeling sorry for himself.
Instead, after all the gifts were opened, we two little boys joyously played with all the toys.
Gary’s hand-me-down truck had lots of fun left in it for its new owner, and was right at home in the little playtime world we kids created under the tree.
And all was well with the world, that memorable Christmas Eve.
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