I love Christmas, my mother did everything to ensure that we had the best Christmas we could dream of. I loved waking up to all the new decorations, smelling the ham in the oven and the food on the stove, it was like heaven to me! I watched my mother work tremendously hard juggling jobs to make ends meet and she never showed a moment of defeat. She has the gift of turning a little into alot.
This Christmas was very special to me because I was extremely excited to return to school and tell all my friends that I had gotten the best gift “a Sony Walkman” or so I thought.
The night before Christmas my sister and I sneaked into my mother’s room pretending to search for decorations but were snooping around to see if she had bought our gift. Final we found it; it was a black Walkman with the cutest headphones. We were ecstatic and consumed with Joy we could scream but we had to make our exit quietly.
It was Christmas morning, and we were up and excited to see our gifts under the tree. We didn’t delay as soon as we opened our eyes, we ran to the tree but there were no presents there. The shock on our faces, I began to panic and I ran to my mother and asked her “did you forget to put the gifts under the tree?”
She looked at me very heartbroken and I could tell that she was trying her best to articulate her words, she kept pausing and deflecting and I became even more anxious and then she finally said come have a seat then she said very calmly, “unfortunately I could not get you your gift this year” My sister started to cry but I was furious “what do you mean mummy we saw the Walkman’s in your room, they were there!” She looked at us in total shocked then she said, “Didn’t I tell you both to stay out of my room?”
I totally ignored her comment because this isn’t making sense, I had just started my first year of high school and I told my friends what I was going to have for Christmas and they were expecting me to deliver, I had to show them that I was cool. My mother then proceeded to tell us, “I am sorry I know you both wanted these gifts, it is true I had bought them, but your mentally unstable Uncle stole them and sold them to buy drugs, I didn’t want to tell you that so I thought it would be better to say I couldn’t afford it”.
My demeanour immediately changed I knew it wasn’t my mother’s fault, but I was so mad I could beat him with my bare hands. I was only twelve years old, but I thought I could knock him out! My mother insisted that she would deal with it. My sister and I felt like our entire Christmas was in ruins and nothing could make up for this. My mother tried her absolute best to make it fun for us, but I was so in my feelings it took me two days to recover. This became the Christmas I would never forget!
Written by Kimisha King
Barbados
Oh no I am so sorry; I can imagine how you must have felt as a child. Thanks for sharing
Kimisha thank You again for sharing your story.
Wow , I felt the disappointment and it wasn’t me.