The picture below shows a “replica” of our first Christmas tree.
Cindy and I were married February 2, 1978. We were starting our lives together living in England working as active-duty Air Force and stationed at RAF Alconbury.
It wasn’t too long, and Cindy was pregnant with our first child. With that, she got out of the Air Force, and we were down to one income, a very low paid Airman.
December arrived and we were preparing for Christmas. She had our baby almost a month early. He was born a couple weeks before Christmas. Well needless to say that money was extremely tight on a single income. Our presents to each other were to be a diaper bag for Cindy and a laundry basket for me.
There was no way we could afford a Christmas tree, alive or fake on our income. So, we got this brilliant idea for a tree.
We got the cardboard center of a long empty roll of tin foil from work. We poked holes strategically into the cardboard roll.
I brought home an old newspaper from work, rolled up the pages and stuck them in the holes. The cardboard roll was the trunk of the tree and the newspaper rolled up were its branches.
I sprayed the “tree” green with a can of spray paint. Cindy cut slats into the edges of the newspaper making it appear to be needles of the tree.
I also bought a Christmas coloring book and small box of crayons. We colored Christmas pictures that we turned into ornaments and using a needle and threat, they were attached to the branches of the tree.
We had our Christmas tree.
Total cost; one can of green spray paint, one coloring book, and one small box of crayons.
We both agree that our first Christmas, although very basic in every way, was in fact our most favorite Christmas of all.
We proved that it is not how many or what we get in gifts, or how many decorations we have hanging in the house, or how well-lit with Christmas lights the outside of the house is at night, we had the true spirit of Christmas that first year that was made completely of love.
We try every year for that same feeling, but because of all the noise around us, all the advertising and marketing ploys, all of us with such busy lives, and a million other excuses, we just seem to fall short.
We miss our first Christmas.
Story by Jim Dykens
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