By Scott Vaughan
East of the Rockies, Christmas 1983 was one of the coldest ever. I was 24 and volunteered with the local Jaycee organization at Christmastime in southeast Georgia. The Jaycees ran the local Christmas charity, collecting gently used toys and handing them to children in need of Christmas cheer. A food box also went to each family. On Christmas Eve, the Jaycees dispersed two-by-two, making deliveries all over the county and throughout the day. Our headquarters was an old, empty Tastee Freez location. At the day’s end, I was assigned to the team cleaning up the Tastee Freez. I was sweeping the front room littered with bits of wrapping paper, misfit toys, and dime-store trinkets. Others were organizing the room for a clean-out after Christmas.
The door suddenly opened, and a grade-school boy stepped inside and out of the cold. He started rummaging through the piles of leftovers. We didn’t know where he came from, why he seemed alone, and why his search seemed so frantic. He was on a mission.
“I need a gift for my mama,” he said without pausing the search. We supposed he lived behind the Tastee Freez, and a box delivered to his home did not contain gifts for adults. For adults, the gift was food.
Finally, he held up a small plastic diamond ring – the kind you get from a gumball machine in the corner of a barbershop. He was elated. We were elated because he was elated. We found an empty jewelry store box and put the ring inside for him.
I heard him say, “Thanks,” as he bolted into the cold darkness.
About 30 minutes passed, and it was time to get home for Christmas. The last to leave, I turned off the building’s lights and locked the old glass doors of the Tastee Freez. Walking to my car, I saw a small figure emerge from a ditch at the rear of the parking lot. I could make out the little boy’s silhouette in the sad light of an outdoor floodlight.
I heard him shouting and started to walk toward him, fearing he was in trouble, but then I stopped. His words were wonderfully clear, penetrating the cold night air on this Christmas Eve.
“She loved it! She loved it!” he shouted. I smiled and clapped my hands as I thought, ‘There’s no sweeter sound than the joy that comes when someone realizes how better it is to give than to receive at Christmastime.’
