It was Christmas time and I was in first grade. Our teacher, Mrs.
McNabb said to us, “Today, we’re going to go to the nursery and pick out a class Christmas tree.”
As you can imagine we went crazy with joy at the thought of that. With our “buddies” we walked the two blocks to the nursery in the snow.
Once there we were given a tour of the place, and told all about Christmas trees. As a treat, we were given Christmas tree. Really it was abranch trimmed from a bigger tree.
Obviously that
didn’t matter to us. We were instructed how to care for it, water it but not too much, give it sun light etc. On the way back to class my little buddies and I boasted about the size of our Christmas Trees our families had or were going to have. Mine was going to be this big:
That afternoon I waited for my mom to come home from work to tell her about the puny class Christmas tree and give her a the first grader’s inquisition: “When are we going to get our Christmas tree?”
Apparently I did this to her everyday for a week or something.
When are we going to get our Christmas tree?”
When are we going to get our Christmas tree?”
When are we going to get our Christmas tree?”
And I guess you could see where that would get annoying. Right?
So, one afternoon, she comes in loaded down with groceries and a broom. Tired from work and I guess she just had enough.
I start in with my questions:When are we going to get our Christmas tree?”
When are we going to get our Christmas tree?”
When are we going to get our Christmas tree?”
She sits down, lights a cigarette and asks me to sit on her lap. (I guess back in the 70’s it was
ok to smoke with a kid on your lap)
“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” she said, “I had to use the Christmas tree money to buy this broom.”
She pointed to the broom leaning up against the sink.
I was crushed.
“No Christmas tree?” I mumbled.
“Oh don’t look so sad. You know what we’ll do? We’ll use this broom,” she placed her cigarette in the ashtray and grabbed the broom, “It’ll be great. We’ll decorate it just like a Christmas tree. We’ll hang ornaments, lights, tinsel, we can even put the manger underneath. It’ll be our CHRISTMAS BROOM!”
She sent me off to wash up and get ready for dinner. While I was cleaning up, my Dad and brother came in and she let them in on the Christmas Broom.
For the next few days my family put up this elaborate charade: pulling boxes of ornaments out of the attic, checking strands of lights, stringing popcorn, dusting off the Manger, The Baby J, Joseph and Mary. But that
wasn’t the worst of it. The worst part of it was the singing.
They started singing carols. Instead of O’
Tannenbaum they sang:
“O Christmas broom, O Christmas broom how lovely are your bristles,”
Oh they got a big kick out of that. They made up lyrics and paraded around the house holding the Christmas broom in front of them like they were leading a parade. They got an even bigger kick out trying to get me to join in. I’d like to tell you that I was strong, that I held out, but hey what do you expect from a first grader? I caved and reluctantly joined in the singing.
This seemed to go on forever. During the day at school I’d make construction paper ornaments for the class tree. At night I’d go through boxes bigger than me of Christmas ornaments to hang on the Christmas broom. How would we ever hang all these ornaments on the Christmas Broom?
At the end of class, on the last day of school before Christmas break, Mrs.
McNabb said, “
Ok, now children I want everyone to take out a piece of paper, their crayons and draw a picture of your Christmas Tree.”
That was it. I lost it. I started sobbing uncontrollably. The teacher had to take me out of the classroom.
“What’s wrong Jimmy?”
“We,” sob, “don’t have a Christmas tree,” sob, “we have a,” sob, “a Christmas bro-
oo-
mmm!”
In between sobs, I managed to tell Mrs.
McNabb everything. Mrs.
McNabb took me to the principal’s office where she called my mother at work!
“Mrs.
Purvis,” she was trying to be as tactful as she could, “Jimmy has told me about your,” she paused, then whispered,
“situation. And well the children have decorated a lovely tree donated by Rolling Ridge Nursery. It’s just going to sit here over the break, and I thought if you’d like, you could pick it up after school today,”
I don’t remember for certain, but I’m pretty sure that I heard my Mother laughing hysterically. Mrs.
McNabb, bless her heart, thought my mother was crying out of embarrassment and stayed silent. My mother composed herself enough to explain the situation to Mrs.
McNabb. She explained to Mrs.
McNabb that this was just a little joke to keep little Jimmy quiet. Mrs.
McNabb turned three shades of red before she was able to talk.
“Well. I. don’t. think. That. Is. Funny. at all. , Mrs.
Purvis!” she spit the words out trying to control her anger, “you should have seen the look on his little face! I think that’s just an awful thing to do to a little boy.”
Now the jig was up. Mrs.
McNabb told me that I’d have a wonderful Christmas. She also said, “And Jimmy if you ever want to talk about your family, you can always talk me. About anything.” She was kind of turning me around as she spoke and pulling up my sleeves, just to make sure there were no marks or anything.
That night Mom explained to me that we were going to get our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve and we would spend the evening decorating it. This apparently was “our tradition.” But for
chrissakes, I was only seven years old, I
couldn’t wrap my head around tradition.
I’m older now, and the scars of that trauma have healed. Sort of. My family never lets me forget the Christmas Broom. Each year, a Christmas Miracle happens and I receive a Christmas Broom.
Sometimes from my family or sometimes from co-workers. Oh sure, now a days a mother would be locked up for such a thing, but those were different times.
Good times. Better times.
It’s made me come to understand the true meaning of Family: finding and exploiting a family member’s
naiveté for all it’s worth. You always had to be on your toes in my house.
Merry Christmas Everybody!
-Jim
