The I.O.U. Christmas

This holiday season as the pile of presents grows under our tree, I’m thinking of a very different Christmas long ago.

I was 11 years old then, in 1970, a time when three of my older brothers had left for college, leaving our big old brown-shingled house outside Boston feeling uncharacteristically quiet and empty. Living with four older brothers was like having a front row seat to the best circus in town, every day of the year. Dinners were raucous feasts. Stupid jokes and insults flew like hurled objects in a food fight. The sole record player in the house was claimed by different brothers day and night, filling the house with songs by Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones, Ian & Sylvia, Pete Seeger or The Byrds : “to everything, turn, turn, turn…”

But as my brothers grew up and went off to college one by one, it was as if the knob on the amplifier was being turned down year by year, and the house grew quieter and quieter and quieter.

“There is a season, turn, turn, turn…”

Calvin left for college first, then Charlie, then Nick. By 1970, most of the time it was just my brother John and me, roaming through the empty house like two feral cats left in a shelter. For the first time in my life, I often felt something entirely new and unpleasant: Loneliness. I really, really missed the circus.

For my parents, having three sons away at college brought its own challenge. The simultaneous tuition payments were crushing, driving my parents to extremes in a desperate scramble to save money.

It was like they were right back in the Great Depression, and they brought John and me back with them. Our regular gallons of rich whole milk were replaced by jugs of Carnation instant milk, a vile watery mix that even our cats wouldn’t lick. The practice of giving me hand-me-down shoes became even more entrenched, to the point where I was instructed to wear my older brothers’ leftovers even if they didn’t fit very well. To this day I have hammer toes to remind me of my personal 1970s Great Depression. These days parents would just get college loans and rack up debt (I did). But if such loans existed in 1970 my parents would have scoffed at the idea. When there was no money to spend, they simply didn’t spend it.

This is how I found myself experiencing a Christmas like no other before or since.

A few days before the holiday, Calvin, Charlie and Nick had returned from college. The circus was in town once again, a welcome burst of brotherly mayhem. All the rooms were full as if they’d never left. Our Christmas Eve dinner was a jostling mass of elbows and jokes and ravenous feasting and laughing and teasing. I absolutely loved it. The next morning, very early, my brothers and I gathered at the top of the stairs. The tradition was that we’d wait for everyone to go down together at the same time. When our parents finally joined us, we jumped out of the gate and ran down to the living room.

My first thought upon seeing the presents around the bottom of the Christmas tree was “Wow.” All the boxes were big. What had our parents bought us that required such enormous packages?

I ran to my box and began excitedly peeling back the wrapping paper, pulling open the final flap of cardboard to reveal…an empty box. No present whatsoever. There was only a small notecard with my dad’s neat all-capital handwriting. It read. “I.O.U. ONE MONOPOLY GAME. LOVE, MOM AND DAD”

My brothers tore open their packages to reveal their own empty boxes, each with its own IOU. We all laughed. It was weird and funny and somehow magical at the same time.

My brothers seemed to feel the same way. For all my parents’ depression-era idiosyncrasies and comical frugality, we knew for sure that they really did love us. And besides, we were together and having fun. What did we really want or need beyond that? Out of all my childhood Christmases, this was by far the very best.

In a few weeks, my grandchildren—a circus of 4—will rush downstairs to find many presents under the tree. There will be toys inside each box, and real candy stuffed in their stockings strung along the fireplace. This will be lovely, but I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about the sheer volume of gifts. The plentitude. Boxes upon boxes filling most of the room. All this juxtaposed with my vivid memory of unwrapping my empty box, and knowing when I read the IOU that it wasn’t really empty at all. It was filled with a loving promise that my parents and brothers would always be there for me. That’s all I really want to give my grandkids this year. That is all that matters.

This belief is what animates my inner Scrooge to wake from a vivid dream and run to the window at dawn…

“He opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist. Clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold—cold, piping for the blood to dance to—golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells—oh glorious, glorious!

“What’s today?” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

“EH?” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

“What’s today, my fine fellow!” said Scrooge.

“Today!” replied the boy. “Why, CHRISTMAS DAY'”

“It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I haven’t missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can.”

I wish you and your family a very merry holiday, with the best and largest turkey you can find. Or a big empty box with an IOU for Chinese takeout. Have fun. Give everyone a big hug. And I’ll be back with more stories in the New Year.