Your Favorite Christmas Story

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knitwit45
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Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by knitwit45 »

I drag this out every Christmas season, it's my favorite Christmas story. I hope you enjoy it, too.

Angels at the Big Wheel

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two. Their father was gone now, We were alone and would have to get by. If there was any help out there, I did not know where to look. I knew we would have to get by some how .

I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress. I loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every factory, store, and restaurant in our small town. No luck! The kids stayed, crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn to do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck. The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted into a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny owned the place.

While I was asking for a job, she peeked out the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour and I could start that night. I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.

That night, when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers, we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the mornings, I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money - fully half of what I averaged every night. As the weeks went by, heating bills added another strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana?

I wondered. I made a deal with the owner of the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires. I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.
Hot steaming Coffee On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up.

When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on Christmas morning, I hurried to the car. I was hoping the kids wouldn't wake up before I managed to get home and get the presents from the basement and place them under the tree. Angel at the Big Wheel Truck Stop Tree (We had cut down a small cedar tree by the side of the road.) It was still dark and I couldn't see much, but there appeared to be some dark shadows in the car, or was that just a trick of the night? Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to tell what. When I reached the car I peered warily into one of the side windows. Then my jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered Chevy was full - full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver's side door, scrambled inside and knelt in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was a whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box. It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes. There were candy, nuts, bananas, and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, also canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning. Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.
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ChiO
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by ChiO »

For all of you incurable Romantics out there (and I know you're there),
my favorite piece from a favorite story (for me, little goosebumps appear
at about 1:47, then major ones at about 5:16).

[youtube][/youtube]
Everyday people...that's what's wrong with the world. -- Morgan Morgan
I love movies. But don't get me wrong. I hate Hollywood. -- Orson Welles
Movies can only go forward in spite of the motion picture industry. -- Orson Welles
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Dewey1960
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by Dewey1960 »

Still and all...
[youtube][/youtube]
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Rita Hayworth
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by Rita Hayworth »

Great Story Here Knitty! I just loved it!
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MichiganJ
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by MichiganJ »

Being a fan of stop-motion animation, I continue to have a warm spot for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. All of the Rankin/Bass Productions are fun, but Rudolph is my favorite.

I'm happy to say that, after a hiatus of over 25-years, the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Newsletter is back again. (It may take a moment to load.)

Happy Holidays!
"Let's be independent together." Dr. Hermey DDS
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knitwit45
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by knitwit45 »

what great memories all of these stories bring! Thanks for sharing them, it makes Christmas at the Oasis even more special.


Can you tell, I've been bitten really hard by the Christmas bug this year..... :lol:
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CharlieT
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by CharlieT »

It's not too hard to figure out my favorite Christmas story, I first saw the '51 version of A Christmas Carol at a Christmas party for children at a local GI Post. I was only 6 or 7 at the time, but a couple of scenes stood out in my memory. Then, just prior to Thanksgiving in 1972, I moved into my own home in preperation for my upcoming marriage the following February. It seemed that every time I turned on the TV that Christmas season, Scrooge was there humbugging away. No matter where it was in the movie, I would sit and watch it to the end. Many of the cable channels were carrying it that year and one evening I watched it for about 5 hours straight in bits and pieces moving from channel to channel. It was then that I fell in love with the story and characters and the actors who portrayed them. I still get a kick out of picking out some of the more obscure bit players in old British films. Tonight, after getting home from our family Christmas party, I plan on putting in my DVD of it and welcoming Chistmas with all of my "old friends".
"I'm at my most serious when I'm joking." - Dudley

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mrsl
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by mrsl »

.
Knitwit:

I just saw your story and was sniveling by the end. I had a bunch of angels of my own one year who were a mixture of truck drivers and construction workers. The guys were building a shopping mall near the place where I worked as a waitress and knew I was a single mother of 4 with no child support and out of the seven of them, for weeks before Christmas I could count on them coming in every day for soup, coffee, and beer. Then came the day I went in all red eyed because while we were at a school Christmas pageant the night before, our house was broken into and all of the Christmas presents were stolen. Three days before Christmas, their last day of working at that site, they came in as usual, but when they left and I went to clean their table, I found envelopes under each plate, with at least $20.00 in each. (At that time $20 was like $100.00 today.) All those big, strong men left, leaving no evidence of having done such a fine thing, and believe me, nobody has since been able to say anything bad about truck drivers or construction workers in my presence since. I never saw any of them again but my kids had the best Christmas ever.
.
Anne


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knitwit45
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by knitwit45 »

Anne, that's better than "The Big Wheel". Thanks for sharing.
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movieman1957
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by movieman1957 »

Isn't it amazing what people will do? No one had to ask. They knew it was right and good.

I have a friend whose house burned to the ground this summer. People he didn't know would bring things to him. One car drove up and asked if it was his house that burned. When he answered yes the man gave him a bag of clothes that just happened to be full of things that fit him. (He's tall and thin.) The man didn't leave his name and has not seen him since.

We are surrounded by people who do wonderful things. They only need the chance.
Chris

"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana."
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knitwit45
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Story

Post by knitwit45 »

We are surrounded by people who do wonderful things. They only need the chance.
Chris, I think they are called ANGELS.
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