A Little Fruitcake by David Valdes Greenwood

Author:David Valdes Greenwood [Greenwood, David Valdes]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2012-01-26T13:00:00+00:00

8

The Shoestring Santa Blues

Socks. No other word from my childhood Christmases so instantly raises my hackles, even though I am now supposed to be a mature adult. By the time I was eleven, a new pattern had been set: under the tree, my brother and I could each expect only two presents, one of which was a two-pack of white tube socks. This was as true for Mom as for us boys, but that didn’t lessen the sting.

Even as a child I knew—or, to be clear, I had been told—the reasoning behind this purchase. First off, with my family now living on social security and food stamps, gifts had to be practical. Besides that, there were millions of children around the world who would be getting no presents at all and who would have been thrilled to unwrap the very same present I sighed at unhappily like an ingrate. The topper was the reminder that presents were not the reason for the season anyway. That very pointed comment was supposed to tap into all my youthful religious guilt, but it didn’t. With each yuletide, the ritual of tearing the previous year’s carefully recycled wrapping paper off these predictably mundane bundles grew more joyless.

I decided to do something about it. It was up to me to set a good gift-giving example to teach Grammy, the admitted giver of socks, that it was possible to give decent presents while still sticking to a budget.

My plan was simple: I would be a living role model of festive frugality, and Grammy would be so impressed that she would follow suit out of inspiration or shame or both. To make this happen, I would have to use up the small amount of cash I kept on hand. My new housecleaning gig for Aunt Jean and Uncle Fred was my one reliable source of income. For $2.50 a week, I vacuumed, cleaned the shower, and Windexed every mirror in the house.

A couple of months on my new job had earned me $17.50, a sum that had decreased because I was expected to give my church both a tithe of 10 percent (lopping $1.75 off the top) and an “offering” of 5 percent (another 88 cents gone). That left $14.87, which I had lessened further by indulging in the Grease issue of Cracked magazine, which I found hilarious and Mom let me buy, even though Grammy called it “filth.” With roughly $14 still in hand, I had all the resources I would be able to muster to shop for my entire list. Therein lay a small problem: there were thirty-six names on that list.

Obviously, I needed something for my immediate family members, and certainly I had to include my new employers, seeing as they had made my bounty possible, but there were also classmates and teachers to consider, and that was just the beginning. There were the Gallants, whose own grandchildren lived far away and who traded off with my grandparents every so often: Grampy and Grammy

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.