This. is a story that was submitted from my friend Jerry. We go a little ways back in history in our friendship. Our friendship has taken on different regards over the years. One thing I know is that Jerry has a ton of stories! The man has worked just about every job on the planet. Trust me when I tell you, Jerry has stories. He has as bookfull.

Here is Jerry:

Story

I will be turning 81 years of age in January and I can tell that I am entering that period of age when my childhood memories are becoming more vivid. Especially around specific events and holidays.

Before I begin, I must preface this story by explaining that my early memories of Christmas were more about Santa Claus and receiving gifts. Now Christmas is more about Jesus’s birth and receiving his Gift, namely his Gift of salvation. Just had to get that out there!

Memories about Christmas in the mid 1950’s, when I was in my single digit years, centered around the anticipation of Santa arriving and leaving lots of presents under the tree and plenty of goodies to enjoy eating throughout the day. I spent a lot of time playing the record player listening to Gene Autry singing “Here comes Santa Clause, here comes Santa Clause right down Santa Clause lane, and Bing Crosby singing his classic, “White Christmas.”

I wasn’t the only child. I had four siblings, three brothers and one sister. (no pets) Our parents and us all lived in a big old house in small town in New Jersey. It was kind of unique living in a relatively small town so close to New York City. We were located only about five miles from the George Washington Bridge.

Dad had his own freezer/food plan business. He used to always remind us how lucky we were that we never had to worry about going hungry. But as I will explain later, we weren’t living on easy street. We had to do without some other commodities.

Mom stayed home and cleaned, cooked and raised us kids.

Although the three youngest of us believed in Santa, we also realized that some of our presents came from stores. It was explained to us that Santa had just enough room in his sleigh to bring us one or two presents each. Mom ordered everything from Montgomery Wards because they delivered. (Montgomery Wards used UPS to delivery their goods. For some reason, at our house we referred to UPS as the “Package Man.”)  This is where we get into the meat of this story; “The Package Man”. Dad didn’t give Mom too much to spend each week. He would put a quarter on top of the refrigerator each morning before he went to work, so Mom could purchase a half a dozen buns at the bakery down the street. Mom had a sweet tooth and the sweets used to help her control her temper also. She had undiagnosed bi-polar and the bakery goods were like medicine. When it came time to do the Christmas shopping Mom ordered all our presents from the Montgomery Ward’s catalog. That was the easy part. But Dad’s income varied and sometimes didn’t have enough to give to Mom to pay for the delivery.

When that happened, we had to hide from “The Package Man” and pretend no one was home. Then he had to come back another day. It made us a little nervous, hoping he would come back before Christmas. Finally, Dad would leave my Mom a blank check (reluctantly) to fill out when the “The Package Man” would arrive with the packages. That certainly took the edge off, except when the check bounced and the “The Package Man” had to return with the bad check. Sometimes he had to come back more than once, because if Dad didn’t leave money to make the check good, we all had to hide like no one was home again. This scenario took place multiple times as I remember through-out our early years. You can imagine how mad the “The Package Man” used to get.  I could see him cussing to himself out on our porch during some of these episodes.

I’d like to take this time to explain why “The Package Man” remained nameless. It’s is my guess, that because of all the trouble we gave him by making him come back multiple times, it was safer leaving him nameless. Less guilt I suppose. I still feel bad for the “The Package Man.”

So, when Christmas morning arrived, us youngest came running down to the living room to open our presents. What a JOY that was. We mostly received necessities like underwear, pajamas, and socks but I for one, was grateful to get them. We each got a toy or two and that was said to be the Santa’s gifts.

Life got a little better since those days of Christmas long ago. And to this day I’m always very nice to “The Package Man” when he delivers packages to our senior housing building.

End Story

Thank you Jerry, for submitting one of what I hope to be many stories.

I hope all of your packages arrive, as we patiently prepare and wait for the coming of JESUS!