Christmas Blessings

Our large brick and cement house in Trinidad was set up with the kitchen downstairs and a huge, almost empty, space punctuated only by a burlap hammock suspended from the ceiling and anchored by rocks tied to either side. It hung just outside of the kitchen and served as our downstairs furniture. Our main living areas, the railroad style bedrooms, the drawing room and the gallery were upstairs. The gallery was an upstairs porch accessed from downstairs by long cement steps (which could be dangerous as my sister Betty fell and cut her forehead and probably still has a scar today) or through a door from my parents’ bedroom or another door through the drawing room. We were very British and called our upstairs living room the drawing room. It was a large room with a table, which we never ate on, that mammy used for ironing our school uniforms every Sunday. The other half of the room had a couch and a rocking chair, both made of dark wood with large, colorful, rectangular handmade furniture cushions stuffed with coco fiber. We had a TV where we watched The Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday. Our gallery was a place of wonder and joy where we would count cars, gaze at the night stars, and I would stare at the moon, looking for the man who was supposed to be there. It was also where our misshapen, green plastic Christmas tree in Trinidad was erected. I remember the older kids putting up the tree and placing all or our toys underneath, especially the prized train set. On Christmas there was probably special food and some small presents but, although I can’t remember any particular Christmas gifts, I still remember the feelings, the excitement of Christmas and the expectation that Santa was traveling to our house on Christmas Eve.

Years later in Queens Village on one Christmas, in the 1970’s, my mother broke her arm and had to go to the hospital. The bill was expensive and my parents used all their available funds to pay the bill. This, of course, left them without any money for presents. My younger sister and I, the youngest in the family, impatiently counted the days and hours and minutes till Santa came. On Christmas Eve we slept on the downstairs couch so we could catch Santa. We didn’t, of course, but on Christmas morning we were overjoyed to receive a plastic Flintstones cooking set. It was so beautiful and came with four plates, cups and a frying pan. The box, when turned over, served as the stove and we tirelessly played with it for hours in the basement. We cut food up on the plates and served each other as Pebbles and Bam-Bam stared back up at us with their frozen smiles. We never noticed that we were only given the one present to share, as we were so overjoyed to have the set. We played together well and didn’t even argue over ownership.

As an adult something jogged my memory as I smiled at the thought of that play set. Suddenly it occurred to me that the Flintstones dinner set was the only present under the tree that year. My little sister and I were so preoccupied with the gift that I never noticed before that my remaining siblings received no presents. It took me years to realize this because the five others never said a word or complained about their gift less plight. Everyone remained silent so that the youngest could enjoy their gift from Santa. That was the true blessing that Christmas.