One day near Christmas
when I was just a child
Mama called us together and mama
tried to smile
She said you know the cottoncrop hasn't
been too good this year
There's just no spending money and
well at least we're all here
I hope you won't expect a lot
of Christmas presents
Just be thankful that there is plenty
to eat
That's quite a blessing that'll make
things a little more pleasant
And us kids got to thinking
how really blessed we were
At least we were all healthy and
best of all we had her
Roy cut down a pigapple tree
and we drug it home Jack and me
Daddy killed a squirrel and Louise made the
bread
Reba decorated the tree with popcorn strings
before we went to bed
Mama and daddy sacrificed
cause this Christmas was lean
But after all there was the babies Tom
and Joanne babies need a few things
I whittled a whistle for my brother Jack and
though we fought now and then
When I gave Jack that whistle
he knew I thought the world of him
Mama made the girl's dresses
out of flower sacks
And when she ironed them down you couldn't
tell that they hadn't come from town
A sharecropped family across the road
didn't have it as good as us
They didn't even have a light
and it was way past dusk
And mama said well I bet they don't even have
coaloil or beans to boil
A log apples cranges and such
Me and Jack took a jar of coaloil nd some
hickernuts we'd found
We walked to the sharecropper's porch
and set 'em down
A poor old ragged lady eased
open the door
She picked up the coaloil
and hickernuts and said
I sure do thank ye and
quickly closed the door
We started back home me and Jack and about
halfway we stopped looked back
And in the sharecropper's window
at last was a light
So for one of the neighbors and for us
it was a good Christmas night
Christmas came and Christmas went
Christmas that year was heaven sent
Then daddy put on his gumboots waited for the thaw
back home in Dyess Arkansas