Christmas as I Knew It

One day near Christmas when I was just a child Mama called us together and mama tried to smile She said you know the cotton crop hadn't been too good this year There's not a lot of spending money and well at least we're all here I hope you won't expect a lot of Christmas presents Just be thankful that there is plenty to eat That'll make things a little more pleasant And us kids got to thinking how really blessed we were At least we were all healthy and most of all we had her Roy cut down a pine oak tree and we drug it home Jack and me Daddy killed a squirrel and Louise made the bread Reba decorated the tree with popcorn strings before we went to bed Mama and daddy sacrificed because this Christmas was kind of lean After all there was the babies Tom and Joanne And babies need a few things I whittled a whistle for my brother Jack And though we disagreed now and then When I gave Jack that whistle he knew I thought the world of him Mama made the girl's dresses out of flower sacks And when she ironed them down You couldn't tell that they hadn't come from town A sharecropper family across the road didn't have it as good as us They didn't even have a light and it was way past dusk And mama said, "Well I bet they don't even have coal oil Let alone apples and oranges and such" Me and Jack took a jar of coal oil nd some hickernuts we'd found We walked to the sharecropper's porch and set 'em down A poor old ragged lady eased open the door She picked up the coal oil and hickernuts and said "I sure do thank you" and quickly closed the door We started back home me and Jack And about halfway we stopped looked back And in the sharecropper's window at last was a light So for one of the neighbors and for us it was a good Christmas night Christmas came and Christmas went Christmas that year was heaven sent And my daddy put on his rubber boots And paced the floor waiting for the thaw Back home in Dyess Arkansas