1962, Pomona, California. I was 4 years old. My father had his heel crushed in between some pipes at work three months before. The company's insurance didn't want to pay. He wasn't working. We were loosing everything.
My dad went out in the car on Christmas eve and found a Christmas tree for 50 cents at 9 oclock at night. He brought it home and my mom and dad decorated it with the Christmas cards we got from folks.
When we woke up Christmas morning, we three kids all opened our presents. Each of us got a sweater that my mom had knitted. These had been wrapped in the Sunday comics. We sat on orange crates (our furniture had been reposessed) and sang Christmas carols.
Looking back, I realized that the sweaters were knitted out of yarn that my mother had unraveled from two other sweaters. One of hers and my dad's favorite old fisherman's knit.
Its the Christmas that taught me the meaning of what Christmas is supposed to be and the one that I always compare every Christmas too. No other has matched it.
Frank Reid