Christmas Is For Kids

This story is dedicated to my father, a WWII veteran, and to all veterans of wars past and present, who have selflessly served our country.

Christmas is for Kids 

Bill Abernathy smiled as he watched his great-grandson, Ethan, swing his new baseball bat in the backyard.  It was a beautiful Florida Christmas Day, with a blue sky dotted by fluffy white clouds, “fair weather clouds,” as the natives said.  The temperature hovered around 70, a perfect day to be outside.  Let others dream of a white Christmas.  He’d take Florida any time.

           “Do you like the bat, Ethan?  Is that the one you wanted?”

“Sure, thanks, Great-Granddad.” 

Bill grinned at the boy.  “So what fun thing did you get for me?”

“Ah, Mom got you a jacket.  Grown-ups don’t get fun things, you know that.  Christmas is for kids.”

“Hey, Ethan,” yelled Jake.  “Are you coming in or what?  Let’s get started!”

Ethan glanced at Bill. “Scuse me, but Jake said I could play Battle Cry IV with him.”  He sprinted into the house and left the bat on the patio.

Kids! Nowadays, the promise of a video game excited them more than a baseball bat.

Bill wasn’t too old to remember his own childhood.  There had been four boys in his family.  They were all gone now, except him.  Life dealt them some rough blows, but when they were innocent children, they had a wonderful time. He could still see them.

During the Great Depression, their father was a supervising guard at the old county prison farm off Commonwealth Avenue.  Summer days they swiped tomatoes off the numerous plants in the fields or cut off chunks of sugar cane to chew. 

Occasionally they would pick a watermelon off the vine, drop it and say, “It’s broken! We’d better eat it quick, before it goes bad.”  Usually Joe was the culprit, the biggest prankster in the family. 

The best times of all were the Christmas Days when their grandpa took them out to his fish camp at Plummer’s Cove.  They fished and cooked their catch for dinner.  They were so happy, not caring what their future would bring.  Their last Christmas Day together was in 1941. The next year all four brothers went to war.  Mark enlisted in the Navy. Rick enlisted in the Army Airborne units.  Bill enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Joe was drafted and went to the Infantry.

Bill would give anything to have his brothers still with him.  Everybody said he was lucky to live to be ninety.  But he was a lost, lonely man.  His wife was gone, Rick’s wife, too.  There was nobody left of his generation, nobody else to understand or remember.  Recollections sharp and clear to him were musty old relics to his children only to be tolerated.

He walked into the house.  The boys sat spellbound in front of the small TV screen as they shot at vicious-looking, animated enemy warriors.

“Hey, Jake, I got one!”

“Good going, little bro!”

The voices of the women drifted in from the kitchen.  The rest of the men were in the other room watching the NBA on the big screen television.  He sat in the recliner and watched the boys.

Ethan reminded Bill so much of his own brother Joe at that age.  They had the same shaggy black hair, the same enthusiasm for pranks and fun. 

Joe had loved Christmas, too.  Bill’s eyes filled with unexpected tears. Joe died on Christmas day in 1944, lying on the snow in the Ardennes at the Battle of the Bulge. Joe always loved long days at the beach when he could play in the sun.  Yet he died in that lonely place on a frigid day with no one there to comfort him.

Mark died earlier, in June of 1942, when the Yorktown sank at the Battle of Midway.  His body was never found.  At least Joe got a decent burial, even if it was overseas.

Rick came back from the war a different man.  He had parachuted into France behind the lines on D-Day.  He never talked about it.  His wife whispered of his frequent nightmares.

Bill flew fifty missions in the south Pacific.  He still felt the anguish of watching his buddies shot down in planes that exploded or disappeared into the ocean.  His best friend was a baseball player, a shortstop with the promise of a minor league contract.  Dear God, they shot him as he parachuted from his burning plane!

 Bill jumped at the sound of amplified gunfire from the video game.  He didn’t like loud noises.  They filled his nightmares.  Shaking his head to clear the images, he observed the boys and the game.  It was a bloody battle in which the object was to kill the enemy before they could kill you. 

“Okay, everybody,” his granddaughter, Sheila, called from the kitchen.  “Dinner’s ready.  Boys go wash up and come to the table.”

“Aw, Mom,” Jake said.  “We were just getting to the next level.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Ethan echoed his older brother.  He dragged his feet as he walked toward the bathroom.

Bill caught him for a hug as he passed.  “Be happy today, Ethan.  You’ve got your family with you.  That’s the best day of all.”

The little boy returned his hug.  “Christmas Day is the very best day!”

Bill ruffled Ethan’s shaggy hair.  “You better hurry. Jake might get both drumsticks!” 

As the family clasped hands around the table for the blessing, Bill prayed his own silent benediction.

On this most holy day as we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, our young still die in combat across the world.  I pray for both Ethan and Jake. May a video game be the only war they ever have to fight. 

Christmas is best appreciated by the pure of heart, without painful memories of losing the ones they love.  On this day, healing memories are made to sustain us after innocence is lost.

Enjoy your Christmas Day, boys, make your finest memories.  We will watch you and recall our own carefree days so long ago.

You’re right, Ethan.

Christmas is for kids.