Saturday, December 17, 2016

'Mother's Christmas Gift' 1917

“Mother’s Christmas Gift” from The Review, High Point, N.C., December 20, 1917

It never comes to Christmas but I think about the times

We used to save our pennies and our nickels and our dimes,

And we bunched them all together, even little baby brother

Put in something for the present that we always gave to mother.

We began to talk about it very early in December,

‘Twas a very serious matter to us children, I remember,

And we used to whisper nightly our suggestions to each other,

For nothing cheap and tawdry could we show our love for mother.

Hers must be a gift of beauty, fit to symbolize her ways;

It must represent the sweetness and the love that marked her days.

It must be the best our money, all combined, had power to buy,

And be something that she longed for; nothing else would satisfy.

Then it mattered not the token, once the purchase had been made.

It was smuggled home and hidden and with other treasures laid,

And we placed our present proudly in her lap on Christmas day,

And we smothered her with kisses and we laughter her tears away.

It never comes to Christmas but I think about the times

We used to save our pennies and our nickels and our dimes,

And the only folks I envy are the sisters and the brothers

Who still have the precious privilege of buying for their mothers.

                        --American Boy

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