Once a Christmas Wish, Now a Memory

 

It's Christmas Eve morning. Today, I have a story for you about a Christmas present I wanted more than any I had ever hoped to receive before. Would my twelve-year-old hopes be realized or would I be desperately disappointed? 

Once a Christmas Wish, Now a Memory

A few weeks before Christmas of 1951, I told my mother about a special gift I wanted. She laughed and said, “You’re too old for baby dolls.” My bottom lip quivered and I blinked away tears.

I didn’t think twelve was too old to play with dolls. My cousin, Carol, had the most wonderful baby doll, one the size of a real baby. I coveted that doll more than anything I’d seen in my entire life. The one time of the year we got new toys was Christmas, making this the perfect time to ask for one. 

I took a deep breath. “Carol has one, so why shouldn’t I?” 

This time my mother didn’t laugh at me. She stopped rolling the pie crust dough. “Girls who are twelve and in sixth grade don’t play with dolls. Carol’s only eleven and in the fifth grade.” 

She started rolling the dough again.

Why did a year make such a difference? I only had one doll, a Shirley Temple look-alike 

given to me six years earlier. At twelve, I had perfected sulking, and I proceeded to do so. I watched while my two younger brothers turned the pages in the Sears catalog and wrote the first letter of their name by the toys they wanted. It probably wasn’t worth putting my initials there. I only wanted one thing, and it looked like I wasn’t going to get it.

Even so, I harbored a twinge of hope all through the weeks that led up to the big day. We had little storage space in our small apartment, so my mother immediately wrapped the gifts she purchased and stacked them on the dressers in her bedroom. She delighted in sending us in there on made-up errands so we could watch the piles grow.  I didn’t see a box that might hold a life-size baby doll. Maybe tomorrow…

Signs of Christmas were all around us. We listened to an episode of The Cinnamon Bear on the radio after school. The same story about two children and a stuffed bear searching for a special star ran every year in December, and despite knowing the ending, I listened every day while I snacked on the latest Christmas cookies that Mom baked daily, washing them down with cold milk. But I thought about my baby doll. 

Mom baked many kinds of cookies, storing them in gaily patterned tins. I helped frost the sugar cookies and sampled the others that came out of the oven as soon as they cooled. Tiny rolled-up rugelach, powdered-sugar-coated crescents, and of course, chocolate chip.  Cinnamon rolls, coffee cakes, and frosted layer cakes made our holiday special. We had fudge every Christmas—so soft and gooey, it had to be eaten with a spoon. While the spicy smells of the holiday filled the air, I thought about the doll.

A few days before the big day, Dad put up the tree and strung the colored lights. We three kids hung the ornaments. Being the oldest, I was in charge of the upper branches. Howard worked on the next tier, and Paul, who was only four, put ornaments on the bottom branches. We finished with silver tinsel that shimmered in the tree lights. Holiday music played on our big console radio in the living room. I looked at the tree and thought that, if I got my doll Christmas morning, everything would be perfect. 

A special angel adorned every tree of my growing-up years. Mom pressed the angel’s pink satin dress, smoothed out her gold wings, and fluffed up her hair so she was ready to stand on top of our tree, watching over us. Dad waited until we decorated the entire tree before he put the angel on the highest point. That year, I wondered if angels could grant special Christmas wishes. Just in case, I silently told her mine. She didn’t laugh or scold, just smiled sweetly while I inhaled the special aroma of the fir tree.

On Christmas Eve, my brothers and I brought one of our everyday socks to the living room and Mom pinned them onto the back of an overstuffed chair since we had no fireplace with a mantel. We knew Santa would fill them with an orange, walnuts still in the shells, and a few pieces of candy. Before we went to bed, Howard, Paul and I brought out all the colorful packages from the bedroom and watched Dad arrange them under the tree. 

It seemed almost magical with the lights, ornaments, and the packages filled with secrets underneath, all watched over by the sweet pink angel on the top. All too soon, we were shooed off to bed with the annual reminder that the sooner we went to sleep, the sooner Christmas would arrive. 

In the morning, my brothers found the gifts Santa brought them next to the tree, for Santa never wrapped his gifts. The boys knew immediately who they were from. Each of them received one of the items he’d marked in the Sears catalog weeks earlier. No Santa gift for me. Twelve-year-old girls didn’t play with dolls and they didn’t get gifts from Santa either. I swallowed my disappointment and settled down on the sofa waiting for Dad to pass out the wrapped packages, one by one.

We opened many packages that held practical items like new socks or pajamas and others that had small toys and comic books, some jewelry for me. I noticed a good-sized box in the corner that I hadn’t seen the night before. When we’d opened all the others, Dad handed me that big box. I looked at him and Mom, then at the angel on the tree. Could it possibly be?

 “Open it,” Dad said. 

I ripped off the paper, removed the lid, and gazed down on the face of the precious doll I’d hoped for. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Instead, I lifted the doll carefully out of the box and cradled her against me. It was exactly like the one Carol had.

I looked at my mother, still in her bathrobe and slippers on this holiday morning. I had trouble getting the words out, then finally said, “But you said I was too old for dolls.”  

“Sometimes mothers are wrong. Daddy and I decided that if it was something you wanted so very much, you should have it. You’ve never had a lot of dolls like some girls.”

 I laid my treasure on the sofa and rushed to my mother’s side. I hugged her and thanked her and then put my arms around my dad and squeezed hard, whispering my thanks in his ear.

I picked up my special Christmas gift and smiled from ear to ear. What fun Carol and I would have later in the day when her family joined ours for dinner. Everyone moved to the kitchen to eat breakfast but I stopped to say a silent thank you to the pink angel on the tree top. 

Twelve wasn’t too old for dolls, after all.

(c)

NOTE:  Next post will be Monday, December 26, 2020