The Browning household was awakened on Christmas morning of 1942 by a loud knocking on their front door. Charles was wide awake as he had had a fitful night. No visions of sugar plums danced in his head. He knew that the family had decided unanimously to pool all their resources….their ration stamps, their extra money, their gifts for family members…and use what they had to help not only the family in Norway but families in Russellville who could ill afford the trappings of Christmas.

Charles’ sister Muriel, too, heard the knocking, but it only brought her to the surface of her dreams before she fell back into a peaceful slumber. She felt good in her heart. As the saying went, “it is more blessed to give than to receive” and she understood. Her family had sacrificed their normal Christmas for one that they would remember for the rest of their lives.

 But Mr. Browning heard the knocking. He and Mrs. Browning had been out of bed for nearly an hour. They were sitting together on the brown sofa in their living room, drinking coffee that was mostly hot water and staring at a Christmas tree under which no packages bloomed. It was a forlorn sight for sure. Even the bright blue bulb highlighting the heralded angel atop the tree had burned out.

“Happy?” Mrs. Browning asked.

“Deliriously so,” he answered, putting down his coffee cup and patting her free hand.

“We’ve done the right thing,” she whispered.

“We have. I have no regrets. And you?”

“Oh, I admit I had second thoughts, but I pushed them from my mind and listened to my heart.”

Mr. Browningglowed like the star that guided the Magi. “You’re one in a million, Darling. It was worth losing an arm in Italy to find you.”

She took his hand and squeezed it gently. “The Lord works in mysterious ways. What is tragic to one person is saving to another.”

He laughed softly. “One man’s…..”

That is when the loud KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! had come. Both of them were startled! “Who could that be,” Mrs. Browning wondered, “at this early hour on Christmas morn.”

Pulling his hand away from hers, Mr. Browning stood. “Certainly there’s one way to find out. I’ll go and see.”

However, before he reached the door, there was a screeching of tires and the roaring of an engine. And when he jerked open the door, he only glimpsed the rear end of a nondescript car as it disappeared around a corner. Later, he couldn’t say for certain whether the car was gray, brown, white, or whatever, for a thick wet snow was falling, obscuring his vision.

But there was no mistaking the boxes that sat on his front porch. There were four boxes in all as well as a manila envelope, a country ham, a roll of smoked sausage, and a fruit basket overflowing like a cornucopia with apples, oranges, nuts, bananas, grapes, and a pineapple. “Where in thunder,” he asked his wife that afternoon had the good people found such treasures in War Time?”

Each of the boxes was labeled with a name: Thomas, Allegra, Charles, and Muriel. After Mr. Browning brought everything inside, after Mrs. Browning put away the meat and arranged the fruit in a red Carnival glass bowl on the dining room table, and after they both stood and prayed over their good fortune, they called the children down to Christmas.

And what a sight met Charles and Muriel’s eyes. There under the tree was a large box for each one of them. “What is it?” Charles exclaimed!

“Where did it come from?” Muriel was flabbergasted!

Mr. Browning let out a loud HO HO HO! “Seems like there IS a Santa Claus after all.”   

 Of course, the Santas that provided these Christmas surprises had chosen to remain unknown. Charles found in his box the following: a sweater with a deer motif from Leedom and Son, a flashlight from Kuhn’s, a sports jacket from Henry B. Edwards Co., and a jar of pickles from Parrish’s Grocery. (How Parrish knew that he loved Kosher pickles was a mystery to him.) And there were other items, too: socks, a football signed by the Panthers and Coach Elvis Donaldson, and a sack of ashes (possibly a gift from one of his buddies, as a joke, of course.

Oh, and the goodies in Muriel’s box: a box of chocolate covered cherries from Eagle Drug Store, a charm bracelet from Settle & McClean Jewelry Co., a sweater knitted by Mrs. Genevieve Roemer’s class (how they had done that in secret without her knowing was a puzzle), a certificate for a hair makeover from the Beauty Box in the Parkview Hotel, and more and more and more.

Much to her delight, Allegra found a small Philco radio (that would work nicely in the kitchen) from Inman and Inman, a bottle of perfume from Duncan’s Drug Store, a month’s free service from American Dry Cleaners, a pair of matching figurines (English countryside) from the Ben Franklin Store, and more and more.

 “Wow!” Thomas exclaimed as he dug into his presents. He named them one by one as he placed them on the floor. “Here’s a small tool kit from Speck’s Sinclair Service, a desk lamp from Logan County Furniture, a smoking jacket from Young’s Department Store, a bag of dog food from McCarley and Richardson (“We’ll have to get a dog,” he reckoned), and more.

he meat, they learned from the labels, came from Guion’s Grocery and the fruit basket from the Roy Rosser Buick Agency (where he had purchased a used car once).

 As the family looked at their treasures, Mrs. Browning posed the inevitable question: “What would we do without friends?”

 “What, indeed,” Mr. Browning reckoned as his family looked on. “A man counts not his riches in the size of his bank account but in the quality of his friends.”

 Mrs. Browning laughed. “And it’s a good thing, for, I fear, our bank account is similar to old man Marley in A Christmas Carol. It doesn’t exist any longer.”

Then, as they did each Christmas morning, they all joined hands, thanked the Lord for what they had received during the old year and made their wishes for the new year. The children went first.

Charles wished for a Panther victory next year over rival Bowling Green; Muriel wished that a certain cute boy in Mrs. C.T. Canon’s music class would notice her; Allegra wished for health and happiness for everyone and for a quick end to the war.

 “It seems,” Thomas replied, “that some of our wishes overlap; but I do have one not mentioned. I wish that the Rolf Olson family on that island off Norway received everything we, along with the citizens of this great city, sent them…and that they have as MERRY A CHRISTMAS as we are having.”

 Then, to show that he had been paying attention in Miss Ruth Price’s English lit class, Charles sang out, “I speak in the words of Tiny Tim from Dickens’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL, ‘God Bless us Everyone.’”

The LoJo

((And now, Dear Readers, so as to leave no loose ends, I take you back to Giske Island.))

 “Halt!” the German soldier demanded of Rolf. The soldier had his rifle squarely lined up with Rolf’s nose; and Rolf, instinctively, raised his own rifle to the same position.

 Both men stared at each other, their trigger fingers twitching in silence, until, suddenly, the German pointed his rifle at the ground. “ROLF?” It was more of a statement than it was a question.

Rolf lowered his weapon. “HANS?”

Each man was remembering that they had had Christmas dinner together only hours before.

From the woods came a far off cry. “HANS? WO?”

Hans looked at Rolf and smiled. “You must go. Quickly. I will count to thirty before I answer. I will fire into the air and tell my comrade that someone ran in the opposite direction.”

Rolf extended a hand, but Hans shook his head. “Nein. Today you are my friend. Heute mein feind. (Tomorrow my enemy.)

As he turned to run, Rolf replied, “God Jul.”

“Weihnachten,” Hans answered. Then he waited a few seconds before firing his weapon into the air. “HIER! HIER!” He screamed loudly!!

((WEIHMACHTEN, GOD JUL, MERRY CHRISTMAS, ALL))