My wish for you

And so this is Christmas.  The season of giving and giving back.  Of family, of food and of all good things.  Of Christmas movies and Christmas trees, of cookies, pies and cakes.  Buttery turkeys and glistening hams.  This is the time of year that some love. It is also the time of year some dread.

Christmas comes at a cost for many people.  I remember the years when we couldn’t afford Christmas.  One year that comes to mind when we had no money.  Our oldest daughter wanted an ice cream making machine.  Our youngest was too young, thankfully.  That year I was working in commission sales and my husband was working as a heavy mechanic for a bus company.  We gave our daughters Fozzy Bears that came from McDonald’s. That year, we scraped together enough money to make a dinner and invited our family over but they declined because of another (better) invitation.  We got through the day, but our oldest daughter reminded us for some years later that she wanted an ice cream making machine that year.

It wasn’t really about the ice cream machine. It was about the feeling of being poor.  And that was what broke my heart more than anything  - that my daughter would know what it feels like to be poor.