Classic Christmas Stories by Frank Galgay Page A

well. By the time the last sack of flour
     had been piled on top of the white gift display to the strains of “As With
     Gladness Men of Old” everyone in the church glowed with the feeling that it had
     all been worthwhile. The White Gifts have lately been replaced by small white
     envelopes in which each child places a sum of money. No doubt the authorities
     have found that financial gifts are more practical than various food items.
     However, I don’t think we’ll ever recapture the feeling of exultation we all
     shared as we brought our white-wrapped gift of raisins, butter or sugar to the
     front of the church. We really felt that we were sharing in somebody else’s
     Christmas, and making it perhaps a little happier.
    If I live to be a hundred I’ll never forget the time my sister and I came close
     to spoiling the Christmas concert at our church. That particular year teachers
     had selected a fairly ambitious pageant as the main item of the program and my
     sister and I were given the lengthy speaking parts. For some reason it was
     decided that the program would be presented on Sunday night instead of the usual
     Sunday afternoon affair. Rehearsals were held, angels’ wings fashioned and all
     seemed to be progressing very well. On the afternoon of White Gift Sunday the
     two of us were lolling around the house, our hair tightly curled in rags, when
     the telephone rang. It was the minister’s daughter and her worried voice almost
     stupefied me when she said “Aren’t you coming out to the Church?” It seemed that
     somewhere along the line it had been decided to hold an afternoon immediately
     and we were more than two miles from the church. One of the male teachers came
     for us in his car, arriving before Mother had finished brushing out our
     barely-curled hair. We were hauled into the church and pushed into our costumes
     in less time than it takes to tell it. If our cheeks and eye were unnaturally
     bright the audience probably put it down to the general excitement of Christmas.
     We managed to remember our lines and the pageant was quite a success.
    House-cleaning has always been a prelude to Christmas in
     Newfoundland, perhaps more than anywhere else in the world. My mother always had
     hers done in good time, her mouth-watering cakes were ready weeks ahead of time
     and even her pudding was made days in advance of Christmas. But my father has
     always been a different proposition. He answered mother’s pleas to “please paint
     the bedroom ceiling” or “When are you going to put down the linoleum in the
     hall?” with the happy-go-lucky statement “There is plenty of time.” And so the days passed while he
     chuckled over a good book or pounded out an intricately worded letter on his
     typewriter. But, as the big day drew nearer, he always started to feel a little
     uncomfortable about the state of the house and he fell to work with vigour. The
     only drawback was that there just wasn’t enough time for him to get all the jobs
     done. Somehow, Christmas Eve always came before thestairs
     were varnished. Perhaps that’s why my brothers and sisters and I always claim
     that the smell of fresh varnish makes us nostalgic for the Christmas Eves of
     long ago. For, when we finally made our way to bed, breathless with excitement
     at the prospect of the next day’s treasures, there would be weary Dad,
     admonishing us not to walk off the stair treads or touch the rail. The shining
     perfection of the stairway, still gleaming in its wetness, holds just as
     important a place in my bouquet of memories as the glittering tree or the annual
     baby doll.

    Speaking of dolls, is any little girl’s Christmas complete without one? I had
     received a daintily dressed, curly-haired doll every year up to the time I was
     eleven years old and that year, shortly before Christmas I decreed that I didn’t
     want a doll this year. Most of my school friends were getting wrist-watches, and
     I felt that the