The View From Granny’s Back Porch – The Gifts That Weren’t Under The Tree

The View From Granny’s Back Porch – The Gifts That Weren’t Under The Tree
Written by Joy Mathis Chadwick

The view from my back porch is blurry this cold winter morning as I peer through the french doors. We just recently had the fields bush hogged and I can almost see the fenceline on the far side of the pasture; I spot several cedar trees that put a smile in my heart. So between the frost on the outside of the door and the condensation on the inside, I think we’ll sit by the fire again for a little while. Leo-The-Giant-Puppy is curled up on her blanket beside me; I think she enjoys the fire as much as I do. (She also enjoyed the Christmas tree. She has chewed the lights and cord until they no longer work. She pulled off all the ribbon from the tree. I’m not sure I’ll ever find all the remains of the tree skirt. And she’s quick like Santa – all this was done in the twinkling of an eye while I was out of the room!)

As a child, I always got so excited when it came time to go get the Christmas tree. It was always the Sunday afternoon before Christmas, unless Christmas was the next day, and then we would get to leave it up a whole week. We would load up in the old pickup truck and head for the woods. Cedar trees didn’t grow near our house, so we would have to go several miles to find the perfect tree; it had to be a cedar tree; no exceptions. What looked perfect in the field didn’t always translate so well once it was brought into our small living room. I remember some trees that somehow became larger than life during the drive home; when my dad would try to trim from the bottom, it completely changed what was left of the tree, but somehow we would “make do”. My momma would put the pruned cedar limbs in a bucket of water to help make the house smell more like Christmas; cedar will always be a comfort smell for me. The decorations were sparse, as were the gifts that would magically appear on Christmas morning. But the best gifts I ever received from my mom and dad are still with me to this day.

At Christmas time, it almost seemed like my momma’s face took on a glowing countenance, or at least that’s what I thought as a young child. We never had much, but when Christmas came around, my momma would find something to give to others; it might have been a cake or a plant that she had grown from a cutting, but she made sure that she taught me the importance of giving from a heart of love. She loved Christmas; she loved the smell of cedar in the house; she loved reading from the Bible about the baby in the manger; she especially loved the church Christmas play when I would get to be an angel; sadly, this was the only time I ever came even close to being an angel, but that’s another story.

My dad loved Christmas too, but he would never ever admit that. He loved the element of surprise and delighted in making me think that this might be the year that “ol’ Santy” just couldn’t come. Many times on Christmas Eve night after supper he would insist that we go for a drive to look at the lights; when we got back home there would magically be a gift or two under the tree. As an only child, I can’t remember a Christmas that it was just us three; my dad always would somehow find some old people who were going to be alone for Christmas and he would bring them to our house for the day. When my sons were little, dad would wrap their gifts in a toe sack and tie it with a hay string so tightly that it usually caused more initial frustration than excitement.

My dad didn’t go to church until he was 80 years old, and then he went every chance he got; so when I was growing up, my momma was the one who taught me about Jesus. I can’t remember a time that I didn’t know about Jesus. (She wrote in my baby book that my first word was “desis”.) She was never intrusive about her relationship with God; she somehow always brought any conversation back to how good God was, or what God had provided, or “what in the world would we do without Jesus”. She would be quick to point out that old so-and-so “just needed a good dose of Jesus”.

As a teenager, I would sometimes get frustrated with my momma for always bringing up Jesus; that is hard even now to admit, but I was always so aware of what my friends might think. As a child, I just didn’t understand about the RELATIONSHIP with Jesus; I just thought that He was much like Santa in that He was always watching and would bless us with “gifts”. It wasn’t until I was 16 years old that I received that most special gift of salvation that I had heard about so many times from my momma. And then I began to understand.

So for all the many Christmases I have experienced – and there have been many – I am so very thankful for the greatest gifts, the ones that were never wrapped and placed under the sparsely decorated cedar tree. I am so very thankful that although my dad didn’t attend church until his grandchildren came along, he gave me the gift of persistence in prayer; he and my mom had been married 60+ years before he ever went to church so this was her gift also. My dad gave me the gift of a strong work ethic; as much as I hated weeding the garden, mowing the yard, and carrying wood for our old pot-bellied stove, I’m so glad that he would have never tolerated anything less. I am so very thankful that my precious momma gave me the gift of wonder, to always see the beauty of God’s creation, to always look at a cloud and wonder if this would be the cloud that Jesus comes back on, to look at someone who appeared to be unlovable but to show them love anyhow. She gave me the gift of her prayers, and oh how I miss that now that she’s gone. She gave me the gift of unconditional love, and I put that to the test more times than I care to count.

This year when I look at our chewed-up-by-the-puppy tree, I hope I have given my family enough gifts that are not wrapped and placed under the tree. I hope when I’m celebrating Christmas in Heaven that my kids will remember not the toys or the video games, but I hope they will remember a mom who loved them just as much as she was loved by her parents whose greatest gifts were never underneath a tree.
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. I Corinthians 13 KJV