Christmas Disappointments

By Joe McKeever

I was 7 years old when I got the first Christmas present I ever received. That morning, as I opened the package, I already knew: it was broken. Here's what happened.

That year, our family had moved from the farming and mining regions of north Alabama into the mountainous coal fields of West Virginia. My dad accompanied a number of our uncles and their friends looking for work, and they all landed jobs in a coal camp just outside Beckley. With a steady paycheck, this year, for the first time in my brief life, the six children in our family would receive Christmas presents.

One Saturday early in December, Mom and Dad made the difficult trip into town and returned laden with boxes and bags. They hid everything in a closet and warned us away. “Not until Christmas.”