Memories of Christmas Past

Fifty eight years ago our family celebrated our first Christmas in the United States. Our family had not achieved its final configuration as Rich would not make his grand debut until August of 1964. That December, we lived in a tiny efficiency on Verdugo Road in Eagle Rock, a little neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. Eddy and I attended Delevan Drive elementary where I was learning English in first grade and Eddy was in kindergarten. That year I met some of my first friends at school, Ingrid Roersma (Gillette), Julie Barker, Linda Kendel (Haupt), Kitty O’Steen, and Wendy Baker. There were some guys too but I have not been able to find them on Facebook.

My mom, Eddy, and I flew to LA a few weeks earlier to join my dad who drove his 1951 Plymouth from Miami to secure a job at a decal factory in Los Angeles with a former business partner. He got the job and saved enough money to get the efficiency and purchase our airplane tickets (with a little help from family in Miami).

That first Christmas was shaping up to be bleak. My dad worked 6 full days and a half day on Sunday. My mom stayed home that first year to look after us. Money was very tight and there was not enough for even a Christmas tree much less toys. That did not deter my mom from making that first Christmas special.

My mom was glum about the situation. In Cuba, we lived a comfortable middle-class life and lacked nothing. My father worked full time at the electric company and moonlighted at his own decal factory in the evenings and weekends. It was through his business dealings at the decal factory that he met the owner of Morse Decals in Los Angeles. My mom stayed at home with us and made our lives comfortable.

In LA, my mom walked us to school every day since we had to cross some pretty busy streets. I was only five and Eddy four so it was a wise decision. About a block from the school there was a house at the top of a hill that had a large beautiful pine tree in the front yard. One of the thick boughs extended over the sidewalk and you had to stoop low to go under it.

One day, after she picked us up at school, we walked by the house with the large pine tree. Eddy and I were surprised when we turned around and saw our mom wrestling with the pine bough. She grabbed it and was pulling down on it when we heard a gentleman call from the front porch. My mom was mortified. The older gentleman came to the sidewalk and asked my mom what she was doing. My mom, of course, did not speak English so I had to help translate. She burst into tears and apologized for pulling on the branch. She explained she thought the branch was beautiful and hoped to bring it home since we could not afford a Christmas tree. The gentleman asked her to wait a moment and returned with a saw and cut the branch for her. My mom said we could return later with my dad and pay him for the branch but he declined and wished us a Merry Christmas. He was a very kind man.

We lugged the branch home and she hung it on the living room wall. We had no Christmas ornaments so she hung all her earrings on it to add a little sparkle. Instead of tinsel garland she hung necklaces, bracelets, and bangles. She also found a small string of lights that she wove through the branches. It was not exactly a traditional tree but to me it was the most beautiful Christmas tree I have ever seen. Eddy and I did not have beds yet so we slept on the orange vinyl sofas in the living room and I remember staring at the twinkling lights until I nodded off to sleep.

Some nights, my mom would come into the living room to watch the old second hand black and white television. She loved scary movies but was too scared to watch them alone so she laid on the couch and I laid on the floor wrapped in a blanket like a mummy. Sometimes, at the spookiest moment of the movie, I would slowly look up at her and open my eyes wide to scare her. It worked every time.

Shortly before the big day we received a couple of large boxes in the mail. The boxes were from Miami and contained gifts from my grandparents, aunts, and uncles. To this day, I have never forgotten their generosity. We would wait until after 10 PM to get a call from Miami since there is a 3-hour time difference and long-distance rates were lower after 7 PM in Miami. The adults spoke first then they passed the phone to Eddy and me so we could hear our grandparent’s voices and say hello. Sometimes we also got to speak to our little cousin Maurice who was about 3 years old and spoke mostly gibberish. Today, he is 61 and apparently old habits die hard. I still love you Mo! My cousins, Leslie and Alan, and all the Figueroa cousins were still only glimmers in their parent’s eyes.

A beachful of sand has passed through the hourglass since those days. Time has taken my dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. Yet they will always live in my memories. Their kindness and generosity mattered at a time when we, especially my mom, needed it most. The older gentleman probably thought it was no big deal cutting the branch and giving it to my mom. After all, it was blocking the sidewalk and would have needed to be trimmed anyway. However, his kind act changed Christmas for our family that year.

Keep this in mind as you enjoy the holidays in 2020. Many of us dealt with some harsh realities this year and there are many less fortunate who are still struggling. It does not take much to make someone’s day a little brighter. It does not have to be a big deal. Next time you go through a fast-food drive-thru, purchase another value meal and give it to the homeless person on the corner. If you can afford it, pick up the restaurant tab for a nurse, police officer, paramedic, firefighter, military member, or even a grocery store employee. They have been on the front lines assuming higher risks of infection to keep our lives as normal as possible. Reach out to family and friends who live alone and let them know you are thinking of them. Any small kindness can go a long way to helping people through difficult times.

Wishing everyone a wonderful 2020 holiday season and hoping you make priceless memories to last a lifetime. I am also looking forward optimistically to 2021, hopeful that it will bring joy and prosperity for all.