My Christmas Story

I’m guessing I was around 8 years old.  Christmas was still magical.  Although I was beginning to question the whole Santa Clause story, I was still willing to go along with it.  It was the time in life when it felt like the things you wanted for Christmas were life or death necessities.  

I wanted an electric train set.  I wanted it so badly that it hurt.  In the late 1950’s a trainset was one of the greatest toys you could have.  I had my eye on the American Flyer.  It had a red nose with a silver chasie.  It was a modern diesel train and I had to have it.  

It was a few days before Christmas.  I was in the kitchen with mom and dad.  Mom was getting ready to go shopping and Dad was going up to take a shower before his day.  Just then a delivery truck brought a huge cardboard box to the house.  My father put it high on the kitchen counter.  As he moved it, I thought I saw a picture of a railroad train on the top of the box.  Once it was on the counter it was lost to my line of vision.  Mom left and dad went up for his shower.  But before he left the room he looked me in the eye, very seriously, and told me not to go near the box, and then he went upstairs.  

My father probably had never heard of paradox, but that was what happened to me.  I had to look at that box.  His warning only wet my appetite to spy.  When finally I heard him step into the shower, I quietly dragged one of the kitchen chairs over to the counter.  Slowly, quietly and deliberately I climbed up onto the chair.  Still, this necessitated that I stand on my tip toes, to see the design on the top of the box.  Then, there it was!  A picture of a railroad train, with the words “American Flyer” on the very top of the box.  

“What do you think you are doing?”  My father’s voice boomed at me.  I turned to find him stark naked, dripping wet with a scowl on his face.  “I told you to stay away from that box.  I can’t believe I find you trying to peek at it.  That box goes back to the store tomorrow.”  Leaving a trail of water, my father returned to his shower.  

I was crushed.  I had ruined my surprise.  Only a few days more and it would have been mine.  How could I have sabotaged my great present.  I walked around dejected for most of the week.  I told some of my friends at school and they all agreed that I had screwed up big time.  

I guess you know that on Christmas morning, that beautiful train set was waiting for me.  Thinking that I had lost it and then finding it was all the more sweet.  I spent hours with that train set, changing the shapes of the track designs and coupling and uncoupling the cars that went with the diesel.   It was, undoubtedly, one of my favorite toys as a child, but it held no interest for my children.  After sitting in the attic in boxes for decades, I sold it last year for $125.  I will never know how much my parents paid for it.   Despite its lack of worth today, it will always be one of the most precious gifts I ever received.