A Christmas Remembered

It’s so exhausting to live in terror!  Even if you’re only 9 years old.

“I have some sad news to tell you, children” my mother had said, one hot autumn day.  “ You will have no presents this Christmas”.

“Well that’s okay, compared to being taken out and shot.  I guess I’ll hope for a rubber doll later, if we ever get out of here,” I thought. I already had a doll anyway.  She had a cloth body and some kind of hard head, arms and legs, maybe made of clay?  Sometimes she even closed her eyes when I lay her down.   

“If we ever get out of here, I’ll allow myself to dream again.”

Canton, China.  The Communists had taken over the city.  Anyone talking to an American was arrested and sent for brain-washing.  My doctor father, would sneak over to the hospital in the middle of the night to help patients, support doctors, and give blood [he was a Universal Donor].  Otherwise, we sat at home, so that the Chinese people would not be hurt.

We lived in the hospital grounds.  The pavements outside our house were chalked with comments I seldom saw, because Ah Yang our cook would wash them away before we could read them.  The nurses, once friendly, were now devoted Communists, who had explained that our mother had stolen us from our real mother, and they were going to kill my parents in the morning.  Looking at her hurt and worried face now,  I certainly wasn’t going to share this news with her.  I used to harbour a lot in my heart those days.

Mother loved Christmas.  She’d start buying presents in the summer. Family gifts were wrapped by Thanksgiving.  But not this year.  This year, we sat together in the house.  So strange to see my parents idle!  They had become washed-out shells of human beings, with love poured out to us, but searching weakly for words of promise.

The constant fear was draining.  Communist soldiers would enter our house anytime of the day or night, demanding that we were harbouring a spy, or had a radio, or just to harass.  I’d lie in bed, staring at the dark ceiling, waiting, waiting, to be taken. 

Christmas morning came.  Dad went downstairs to turn on the Christmas tree lights, or, as he always said, “to see if Santa Claus has come”.  But of course I knew he hadn’t.  If we couldn’t get out, then Santa Claus could definitely not get in.

It was all right.  We were still not dead, I thought, as I slowly descended the stairs and entered the living room that morning. Yes, Dad had got the tree lights to work again this year, and they shone brightly.  But, living in my fog of fear, it took quite awhile to realize what I was looking at.  Under the tree there were presents. For each of us!

I looked at Mom, not comprehending.  “The Canton Post Office contacted us,” she said.  “There was an unclaimed package from America, about two years old.  They asked if we wanted it.  Since we were the only foreigners in the city, they gave it to us.” She handed me a box.

I slowly opened it, trying to switch from the “absolute assurance of no presents” indelibly locked into the brain, to actual physical Presence of a Present.  There it was.  A doll.  A rubber doll!  I held her in wonder.  Mind you, two years of being in a package with a broken jar of jam had rotted her arm, but it was covered with bandages, and Mom had knit her a cardigan, so that it wouldn’t show.  I cherished that doll throughout my childhood.

Holding her, I looked around the room at my brother and my sister.  They, too had gifts.

And then my parents, my exhausted weary parents. For this precious Christmas Moment, the huge wall of fear we were living in was pushed back, way back. For these Christmas moments the love in the room was so strong, beating into the distance the lies, threats, hurt, disillusionment, terror, and bombing. Here, and now, it was their love that was holding us together in safety…..

…..enriched by an unknown employee at the Canton Post Office who inadvertently delivered a miracle.

Note: My doll — Betsy — was handed over to the Salvation Army on the night before my wedding. The toy cat at the top of this blog is the gift my sister received that day.  “I named him Jimmy after our brother,” she says.  “He’s been through a lot over the years, poor little guy”.

There’s a verse in “O Little Town of Bethlehem” that is seldom sung around here:

“Where children pure and happy

Pray to the blessed child.

Where misery cries out to thee,

Son of the mother mild;

Where charity stands watching

And faith holds wide the door,

The dark night wakes, the glory breaks

And Christmas comes once more.”

May we all, inadvertently or deliberately, bring Christmas to many in the coming year.  Happy 2026!

Walnut and Cranberry Bars

Several tasters wanted the recipe for these bars…well, to be truthful, only one.  But many said they were delicious.  They’re easy to make, and are hearty enough to be dropped into a cellophane bag, tied with a ribbon, and become a house gift when you go visiting.

Find a cup that measures 8 liquid ounces (227.2 millilitres).  Use it for your measurement for this American recipe. Spoon measurements are the same in UK and USA.

Moderate oven 350 F, 180 C

½ cup butter (4 ozs)

1 ½ cups brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ cups plain flour

2 tsps baking powder

1 cup chopped walnuts

½ cup dried cranberries

Powdered sugar (optional for dusting)

Throw everything except nuts, fruit and powdered sugar into a food processor.  Whizz until smooth.  Add walnuts and cranberries.  Whizz a few seconds just to mix through.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until lightly browned.  Cool, cut into squares.  About 24 squares.  Dust with powdered sugar if you wish.