BRINGING HOME THE CHRISTMAS TREE

by Marc Maurer

Marc Maurer is a husband and a father. He is an attorney. He is also blind. He is a man of determination, sensitivity, integrity, and hope. I am glad he is all of these things, for he is also President of the National Federation of the Blind. To a great extent the well-being of future generations of blind people depends upon the National Federation of the Blind and the personal qualities of its leadership. With Marc Maurer leading the organization I am content to have it so. Read "Bringing Home the Christmas Tree," and I think you'll agree with me. Christmas was for me the most wonderful holiday of the year when I was a boy. There were many small surprises and much happiness.

Thanksgiving was memorable because I was able to come home from the school for the blind which I attended for the first five years of grade school to be with my family. There was always an enormous basket of fresh fruit as well as a huge bowl of nuts to be cracked and eaten. But the best part about Thanksgiving was that it signified the beginning of the Christmas season. Before Thanksgiving, it was simply autumn. After Thanksgiving, Christmas was on its way.

My Christmas problem was to find a way to obtain suitable gifts for my family and friends. My allowance the weekly grant from my father just was not large enough to meet all of the demands. When I was small, it was a nickel. By the time I had reached high school, it had grown to the grand sum of a dollar. When I was in the ninth grade (or maybe it was the tenth), I persuaded the newspaper to put me on as the only blind paper boy in town. Every morning all three hundred sixty-five days of the year I rose at five o'clock to collect my papers, deliver them, and walk home. The distance covered in the round trip was a little over two miles.

I liked the walk especially in the midst of a snow storm. When the wind was blowing, and the snow was falling, I felt humble. It seemed to me that God was reminding us that He had created the world and everything in it.

The paper route brought in a little extra money as I remember it, between four and five dollars a week. The increase in my financial well-being seemed dramatic. During the summers I could mow lawns or do other odd jobs. One time I was hired at a dollar an hour to roof a garage. The work was completed in twenty-nine hours. But these summertime activities didn't help at Christmas.

It was all right to begin thinking about Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. However, planning for the most important holiday of the year before the season arrived was out of the question. In my home town Christmas decorations were hung in the streets before Thanksgiving, but our family ignored them until the proper time.

The Christmas season was special and had to be saved until using it was appropriate. This meant that I could not purchase Christmas presents before Thanksgiving. Therefore, I had available only those resources which could be mustered between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes the money ran out. Nevertheless, gifts must be procured. But, buying them was not essential. They could be manufactured, and sometimes they were.

One year I fashioned a wooden rifle for one of my brothers. Another time I baked homemade Christmas rolls for a friend around the corner. Bread making was a skill I acquired early. And I was not the only one in my family who turned lovingly to handicrafts for the Christmas season. One of my most treasured Christmas presents was a hand-made wooden desk designed and built by my father. I used it for almost ten years. Part of the delight of the Christmas season was that many unusual things occurred. Visiting neighbors, friends, and relatives came unexpectedly; mysterious packages arrived with contents that must remain secret until the great day; plates of goodies were presented that had been made in a kitchen whose customs were not the same as our own. The cookies and cakes were not the same as the familiar standbys I had come to know so well, and some of them were extraordinarily good.

I was the second of six children and the only member of the family who was blind. My sister and my four brothers attended school in our home town. From the time I was six years old until I was eleven, I attended the school for the blind. At Christmas for two weeks or a little more we who were students would say goodbye to the routine at this residential school.

At the school for the blind the wake-up bell rang at 6:30 in the morning. By 6:55 we were expected to be dressed with our faces washed and our teeth brushed. At that time, we lined up to march from the dormitory to the dining hall for breakfast. Breakfast began at 7:00 and lasted half an hour. Between 7:30 and 8:00, we were expected to clean our rooms and make our beds. My roommate and I divided up the cleaning chores. I dusted the furniture while he dusted the floor. Classes began at 8:00 and continued until noon. We marched in line to lunch, which also lasted half an hour. After lunch we were free to play on the playground for a few minutes. Classes in the afternoon started at 1:00 and finished at 4:00. One period each day was devoted to gym class. After the 4:00 o'clock adjournment of classes we were free to play until we marched to the dining hall at 5:25. After supper there was an hour of mandatory study hall. Then for an hour we could read or play or do as we pleased. By 8:30 all students were supposed to be in their rooms, and at 8:45 the bell rang for lights out.

Two nights a week at the school for the blind there were special events. On Wednesdays and Saturdays we were expected to bathe, and (before bath time) we were permitted to go to the basement of the dormitory for "snack bar." Snack bar was the name for the student-run store. At the snack bar we could buy candy bars, ice cream bars, and a limited selection of penny candy. A prepackaged ice cream cone that had been dipped in chocolate and nuts (we called it a drumstick) cost fifteen cents. I didn't have fifteen cents very often, so my visits to the snack bar were infrequent.

On Saturday the schedule for meals was the same as it was for the rest of the week, but after our rooms had been cleaned and our shoes were polished, the remainder of the day was free. On Sunday we were expected to dress in our Sunday clothes, and we were then sent to church.

When the Christmas holidays came, all of this changed. At home there was no scheduled time to wake up, no pre-set moment for breakfast, no routine for dusting the furniture and making the bed. Furthermore, there were family members to play with, and there were the exciting and mysterious Christmas activities. In the kitchen there were homemade cookies and candies. The aroma of varnish and wood shavings emanated from my Dad's shop in the basement. There were usually sewing and knitting projects that had to be finished late at night so they would be ready for Christmas.

The days are short in December, and in the midwest, where I grew up, they are often snowy and cold. When school was out, we would tramp the fields and woods around our town and find places to use the toboggan that our parents gave us one Christmas. The cold felt good, especially at the end of the day when we got home to sit by the fire. And the pungent aroma of clove and cinnamon that came drifting from the kitchen was a mouth-watering promise of the cakes, the pies, or the cinnamon rolls that could be found there. One Christmas I read a story about the Yule Log the large chunk of timber which in English legend is traditionally set ablaze on Christmas Eve to initiate festivities for the celebration of the holiday. I decided to cut such a log. With an old handsaw we found, I set out to bring home the largest piece of a tree that would fit in the fireplace. I measured the opening with a piece of stick and marked the length by cutting a nick with the edge of my knife. The saw was old and dull; the log was heavy, thick, and damp. It seemed to me that the job of cutting it would take forever. When the cut was finally complete, I hefted my prize and dragged it home. I rolled it into the fireplace and stuffed as much kindling around it as I could cram into the opening. Our Yule Log burned for many hours and brought warmth and cheeriness to the hearth. Then there was the Christmas tree.

In our family we all went together to get the tree. We would pile into the old 1954 Plymouth to go hunting in the Christmas tree lots for just the right one. The various members of the family had different objectives. Dad wanted the tree to be cheap affordable if you want the polite word. Mom wanted it to be full and pretty. We kids wanted it to be big. When we arrived at the Christmas tree lot, the kids would spread out in all directions, hunting through the trees. Every few seconds somebody would yell that the perfect specimen had been located. The whole family would come to admire it, and I would be asked to examine it with my hands to see what I thought. The spruce trees were my favorite, the ones with the little short needles and the teeny little pine cones.

When the best of the trees had been discovered, the price negotiations began. This was my father's responsibility. A good tree was one that had plenty of branches, no holes, a height of at least nine feet, no bare spots, and a nice Christmas tree shape. Such a tree was acceptable, but it could be made much better if my father got a "deal." If the asking price for the tree could be reduced by a third or a half, our Christmas tree was one of the best.

We would climb back into the old Plymouth and lean out the windows so Dad could hand us the prized possession. We would drive home slowly, freezing our hands and ears clutching tightly to the tree, which we held pressed to the side of the car. With four or five of us grasping the trunk, the branches of the tree filled the windows on the driver's side of the car. It wasn't easy to see on our side, so we honked the horn a lot at intersections on the way home.

When we arrived home, it was my father's job to set up the tree. Because of a number of disasters (there is a particularly unfortunate Christmas morning that I remember when the tree fell over in the middle of a number of packages) it became the custom in our house to anchor the tree with a cord to at least two separate brackets on the wall.

Then it was time to decorate. This was Mom's special area of interest and talent. She directed all of us in the process and added the finishing touches herself. When the balls were hung, the tinsel meticulously arranged, and the lights lit, the tree changed the living room from a nice place to be to the center of enchantment.

As I remember the Christmases of my growing up years, it is clear to me that my blindness was not a major ingredient. Christmas memories remind me of home and of family members who care for one another. Gentleness, admiration, hope, and faith of such as these are memorable Christmases made. I did not know, when I was a student at the school for the blind, what my own life could bring. However, as I prepare for Christmas this year, I am reminded of those joyful experiences of long ago. I now have a family of my own. One of the important ceremonies in our household is the procurement of the Christmas tree.

My son David (a third-grader) asked me to help him build a Christmas present for his Mom. Together we are cutting the wood and fitting the pieces. The staining and finishing must be accomplished before the festive day. The aroma of varnish will mingle this year with the smells of cinnamon and chocolate as we prepare for the giving of gifts.

Perhaps the joy of the season is even greater because there were many times when I wondered if it would be available to me. Can blind people have good jobs and raise families? These are questions which come inevitably to the mind of a blind student growing up. They demand answers, but information is scarce, and sometimes the messages are discouraging.

When I came to be a part of the National Federation of the Blind in 1969, I met caring people who were willing to give me the benefit of their knowledge and experience. I met those who had hope and faith. I came to be a part of an organization of individuals who cared for one another.

The responsiveness, the support, the warmth, and the caring I found in the National Federation of the Blind are reminiscent of the gentleness, the faith, and the hope I had come to associate with the Christmas season. I have known the commitment of the National Federation of the Blind for almost a quarter of a century. In that time many thousands of blind people have been given encouragement and support. Many Yule Logs have been cut, and many trees decorated. A number of blind children have come to be blind adults with children of their own. The blindness, which might have prevented a full life, was not permitted to interfere. The Christmases for those blind people have been warm, hearty, hopeful celebrations. We are planning for many more.