Christmas Joy! A True Story by: Ronnie Daniels.

“I tell this little story Christmas.

In 1944 I was four years old so I can remember something’s that happened back then. World War Two was winding down but everything was rationed and you couldn’t buy much if you had money. Which we didn’t. My Daddy and Momma worked a little forty acre cotton farm.

It was Christmas Eve, a day about like this one. My Daddy had took the mules and drug up some tree tops where he had been clearing a little patch of new ground.

When it got dark My Daddy took me out to that brush heap and set it on fire. It was dry and in just a few minutes it was burning good. We backed off and my Daddy sat down against a stump and pulled me down in his lap every now and then a knot in that bush heap would explode in the heat and the embers would shoot up higher and higher like stars until they burned out.

After a while we went back to the house. My Mother picked me up and carried me into the kitchen. There on the table in the light of the kerosene lamp was an apple, an orange, and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It was a little red airplane. Whittled out of a piece of cypress it had a propeller that would spin in the slightest breeze. It had black checkers for wheels. How did he know to do that? He had never seen an airplane up close. What did they have to do without to buy that red paint? They are both gone now and I’ve seen a lot of Christmases since then but nothing has ever compared to the joy that little boy felt on that Christmas Eve, long, long ago. ” ~by Ronnie Daniels.

Note: this is the story that lifted me from my 2020 sadness. I only hope it does the same for you. Heartfelt thanks to Mr. Daniels for sharing it and allowing the reprint in Capricorn Science.