DECEMBER 2 - ON GIVING AND RECEIVING

Well, anyway, you ‘have done something’ so here’s hoping. You are a good child – and understand. Ina to Vance, December 1934

It was Monday “wash day.” The fact that Christmas was coming didn’t change a woman’s work schedule. Before daybreak, Jack had stoked up the old cook stove and set the water to heating as usual. When she had finished wringing the last piece, she hung the clothes to dry on the screen porch at the back of the house. The day was sunless and cold, so this evening she would doubtless have to leave the clothes by the cook stove to finish drying.

A spell of cold was predicted with highs in the teens and lows in the single digits. Jack had commenced to fill the wood boxes. He would also cork up the front door and they would close off the living room. Ina regretted that. She loved her living room.

Now that the day’s big chores were finished, Ina took her Christmas teacup and saucer from the cupboard in the dining room and poured herself a cup of tea from the little brown teapot. She would enjoy the tea with a big gingersnap; the spices would come to life when she dipped the cookie in the tea. Then she sat down at the kitchen table to make serious organizational efforts toward her Christmas doings. The days before Christmas would fly by, and she had a lot to do. Like Santa in that new song she’d heard on the radio the other night, she’d make her list and check it twice. How did that go, now?

You’d better watch out,

You’d better not cry,

Better not pout,

I’m telling you why,

Santa Claus is coming to town.

Ina chuckled quietly to herself as she remembered the lively tune. Perhaps that song had “staying power.”

As Ina organized her lists, she began to think about gift-giving. This year, both daughters Pearl and Ethel had written that they couldn’t afford to send gifts. Pearl and Al, farming in northern Alberta, had nothing to sell though they had enough to eat -- vegetables, fruit, beef and pork and, of course, plenty of milk and butter. And Ethel and Ernest’s move from Havre, Montana, to Minneapolis had strapped them, Ethel said, and they couldn’t afford to send much either.

Ina kept her disappointment to herself. The gracious giving and receiving of gifts was a Christian virtue, she believed. Lord knows she had never had money to spend for gifts – never! – and yet she would not let a Christmas pass without remembering those she loved in some small way. To her way of thinking, a gift need not and should not be costly. It could even come from one’s storehouse of items, new and used. Anyone could give these types of gifts, regardless of his means, and she was a little disappointed that her children were influenced by the ways of the world.

And she hated to admit it, but she depended on her children to help make her Christmas. Christmas helped to pass the winter in this lonely place, and she loved the coming of the boxes and well – whatever might come to her as a gift. But, she reminded herself, her thinking was a bit off. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

[“Santa Claus is Coming to Town” was indeed first published and performed in 1934. You can read about it here. And taking it a step further, Hallie points out that you can listen to the original recording here. I think it's delightful -- so very '30s.] KW