Cindee's CHRISTMAS GIFT -

            We were poor.  My husband had just graduated from seminary.  This was our first home and the salary was small.  It was December, 1961.

            We lived in a big, square, drafty house out in the country five miles from a small Midwestern town.  Our first daughter, Cindy, was almost three and her baby sister, Sandy, was only eight months old.  I wanted to make their Christmas just as wonderful as I could.  But we seemed to be destined for a slim Yule Tide.  There was a doll in a store window in town that Cindy wanted.  She talked about it all the time.  But, sadly, there was not enough money.  All our money had to be spent on essentials.

            There was one week left before Christmas.  I was dealing with the wringer washer in the basement, washing and rinsing a week’s worth of laundry, putting each piece through the wringer three times.  My husband was working on his Sunday sermon in his study.  When I came up with a basket full of wet sheets, pillow cases and large, heavy items to hang on the outside clothesline, he went to get the mail from our box at the edge of the road.

            “Guess what!” he shouted at me, but I had clothespins in my mouth.

            “Hm-m-m-m?” I replied.

            “All the ministers in the Synod received Christmas checks and guess how much it is?”

            “How m-u-m-m-ph?” I guessed, clothespins slipping to the ground.

            “Twenty-five dollars!  And just before Christmas!  We can really use this!”

            “I can really use that,” I thought. 

            The rest of the clothes, the little girl things, the diapers, shirts and blouses were hung on the lines that had been strung in the basement.  They would dry slowly and be ready for folding the next day.  The clothes outside would come in later in the afternoon, frozen stiff, but mostly dry.

           

            The next morning, I planned to go to town to get what I considered necessities for Christmas, and by now the extra $25 was burning the proverbial hole in my pocket.  Perhaps I needed gift wrap or another trinket for the tree.  Cindy wanted the doll.  I was thrilled to be able to go shopping – to spend the money.  Money that was unexpected and free!

            Cindy and I got dressed in our warm winter duds, jumped in the little blue Rambler and took off for town.  My husband was the designated baby-sitter for Sandy.

            We had our treasures (including the coveted doll) safely tucked into the back seat of the car and Cindy and I were on our way back home.  The road was hard surfaced and straight as a string between town and home.  But it had been snowing and Cindy had her little red boots on.  Her snowy boots were supposed to stay on the floor of the car, but being a wiggly little girl she got very close to putting her boots on the seat.  She wanted to sit on her knees so she could see.  (Car seats and seat belts were only a gleam in the eye of some transportation safety bureaucrat at that time.)

            I looked over at her and noticed the activity.  I kept my hands on the wheel, but I said, “Keep your feet on the floor!”  Then I kept looking at her to see to it that she followed my instructions.  My hands on the steering wheel must have followed my eyes on my child.

            I’ll never know where she put her feet because at that instant something was happening to the car.  I felt the difference right away, turned to look out the windshield and pulled my foot off the gas pedal, but by that time we were flying in a blur of white.  The car was moving about 45 to 50 miles per hour, I’m guessing.  I didn’t have time to hit the brakes.  Since I already knew there was nothing I could do to change what would happen, I just held on to the steering wheel and waited for the car to come in for a landing.

            We were down at the bottom of a 15 foot ditch.  The car was covered with snow.  I looked over at Cindy and discovered that she was fine.  She wasn’t even crying.  I was calm -- completely in control of things.  I shoved as hard as I could to get my door open and crawled out of the car pulling Cindy with me.  We looked up and saw the edge of the road about 10 feet above us so we began to crawl.  On hands and knees we scrabble through what seemed like tons of snow.  Finally we reached the top. 

            We stood there, brushing ourselves off.  I really didn’t know what to do then except to start walking and just as I was about to do that, a car pulled up.  I don’t know what kind of car it was or anything about the driver except that he was a neighbor.  He was kind too, because he said he’d take us home.  I don’t remember our conversation, but I suppose I said, “I’m the minister’s wife from Ebenezer Church, just down the road.”

            So we got home, all in one piece.  But the car was missing.  Into the house we went.  My husband was in his study and came out to greet us.  The minute I saw his face, my “control” went out the window and I fell apart in his arms.  I cried, “I ran the car into the ditch!”

            He said, “Is Cindy OK?   Are you OK?”

            I said, “Yes, we’re both OK.”

            He said, “Where is the car.”

            I said, “Well, it’s somewhere in the ditch between here and town!”

            He said, “But, where?  Was it closer to town or closer to home?”

             “I don’t know!” I wailed.

           

            One of our parishioners drove over, picked up my husband and they went looking for our little blue vehicle.  They drove all the way to town and didn’t see it anywhere.  They looked in both ditches, all the way.  No car.  On the way back, they finally spotted a patch of blue in the ditch nearly buried under all the snow.  It was obvious that it wouldn’t be driving anywhere anytime soon.   To get back on the road would take the assistance of a tow truck.

            The tow truck came, pulled the car up on the road and back to a garage where it was thawed out.  There was snow everywhere!  It was packed under the hood, under the car, under the fenders and everywhere a bit of snow could possibly get.  But when he tried the starter, my husband was thrilled to find that no additional problems were in the offing.  It started without further incident.

            Alas, the cost of getting the car back on the road was exactly $25!  The Christmas gift was gone – as well as the money I had spent in town – money we could ill afford.  The next couple of weeks would be slim indeed.  But Cindy had her doll.

            Let this be a lesson for all:  be content with whatever you have………. Phil. 4:11.

Addendum (Twenty years later):

The same doll was taking a bath with Cindy's daughter one day, the plastic stiff and somewhat fragile. But she still worked well for a bath tub mate. Kirsten pulled the doll closer to her and the leg came off. Totally horrified, Kirsten started screaming and screaming and needed to be out of the tub – right now. Cindy got her calmed down and went back to the tub to get the doll. Cindy fixed it in right front of her, but it was never the same again. The doll was relegated to a top shelf in the attic closet where she couldn't be seen.