One Christmas that stands out in my mind as very memorable was one of two small girls, my sister and I. It really wasn’t what two little girls would expect. I have had many wonderful Christmases but one that keeps coming to mind was way back in the forties. I’m getting old! Anyway, times were poor back then and we didn’t have much in our house. My mom was sick in Burin Hospital; she wouldn’t be home for Christmas and we couldn’t go visit her because the only way to Burin back then was by boat and it was too far away. The steamer only came once a week, I think at that time it was the Petite Forte. My sister Madonna and I were only five and six at the time and we were excited about Christmas like all children are. When we awoke on Christmas morning, Santa had not left anything at our house. We thought, “He must have forgotten us.” I remember my father cutting a peppermint knob candy in two pieces and giving it to us. I don’t remember being sad or anything. I guess that’s the way it was then. Dad cooked a hen from the hen house for dinner. We never heard of turkeys back then. After dinner, Dad said to us, “Why don’t you go see your aunt Maude.” (God rest her soul. She’s gone now. We loved her dearly. Mom and Dad are gone as well.) Anyway, we went to visit Aunt Maude. She was always happy to see us. When we got there we saw two presents on the chair wrapped in pretty Christmas paper. We looked and looked at Aunt Maude, and finally she said, “These are yours, go ahead and open them.” We were so excited, one had my name and the other had my sister’s name. It was presents from Aunt Jean, Mom’s other sister. She was working in St. John’s at the time. We were so excited as we ripped off the paper. We couldn’t believe our eyes - we each had a nurse’s kit. We had never seen anything like that before. A little blue case with all the things nurses would have, all plastic of course: a stethescope, a thermometer, a needle (wow!), the thing to look in ears, even candy pills. There was a plastic apron, a writing pad and a pencil. We thought we had the world. We ran home to show Dad what we had. Christmas had not passed us after all. Dad took us on the wood slide, the one he used to bring wood for the stove, and went over the Boat Harbour ice to visit Dad’s sister Aunt Effie in Brookside. She gave us apple pie and lassie bread. Our mom got home from the hospital two days later and we had a good Christmas after all.     Submitted By: NULL