You can make life wonderful
Holiday spirit triumphs over sad childhood
MY first real memory of Christmas was when I was 5 years old. I had gotten a cheap little plastic Nativity scene with a tiny Baby Jesus, which truly mesmerized me.
Just a few days later I would be clutching that Nativity scene to my chest in terror as I hid in a closet in our bedroom as the police came to forcibly evict my family onto the street yet again.
By the time I had reached the age of 17, myself, my older brother and younger sister had been evicted from 34 “homes,” many of them lacking heat, electricity, water or phone.
And yet, they were still “home.” The dirty mattress the three of us slept upon on the floor was better than the cold and filthy cars we moved into in and around the Boston area.
My parents, while highly educated, were completely dysfunctional alcoholics who used every penny to feed their addictions while almost never feeding the three children they came to view as burdens to be ignored. Because of that reality, we never had what would pass for even a bad Christmas. “Bad” would have been a promotion.
But the Christmas that really put the exclamation point on those memories happened when I was 7 years old. The only present each of us received that year was a 2-foot tall inflatable Santa Claus my father had picked up for free at a gas station. Even at that, we were still excited to believe that the real Santa Claus had just left them for us as we snuck downstairs to find them sitting next to a 4-foot tall silver aluminum Christmas tree.
We brought the inflatable Santas back up to our room, which — like the rest of the house — which was about 25 degrees Fahrenheit inside, as we had run out of heating oil about a week earlier. Not wanting my “Santa” to be cold, I put him under my worn blanket that Christmas night as I lay down on the floor under my coat.
There were a number of low points with regard to Christmas as a child and yet, as unbelievable as it may be to some, I never lost faith. I did not lose faith in the Baby Jesus, and I did not lose faith in the true meaning of Christmas.
Flash ahead a few decades, and I somehow managed to end up in the White House writing for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. I worked as a senior official at the Pentagon, was a principal at a couple of major law firms and I became a somewhat successful author and communications consultant.
Two years ago, I sat down with a minister to discuss why so many people were not only losing faith but literally walking away from their houses of worship.
He felt that more and more people were simply losing faith in their “leadership” — be it political, corporate or faith-based. That lack of faith was on my mind a few months later when my wife was driving us through a winter snowstorm. As we drove, I attempted to read the local newspaper ... except ... every headline seemed to be tragic, sad and hopeless.
I quickly put the newspaper down and soon found myself star- ing at a large and growing snowbank. As I did, my mind wandered to an image of the North Pole.
Precisely because of what I went through as a child, I always wanted to tell a Christmas story that might instill a bit more joy, hope, faith and a human connection in readers. Especially those going through unrelenting and often unbearable pain.
While I never did have that “real” Christmas as a child, now that I was a writer I could attempt to create one for others. From those thoughts came the inspiration for my novel: “The North Pole Project — In Search of the True Meaning of Christmas.”
A multibillionaire receives a call from his minister brother from Texas who reminds his sibling that the only time he was truly happy in life was when they lived on an Army base with their military parents. As an 8-year-old, the now-billionaire saved every penny to buy Christmas presents for less fortunate children on the base.
“Become that person again,” the minister brother begs him. “Become Santa Claus all over again and in the process, save yourself.”
The very literal-minded billionaire then decides to build a real “Santa’s workshop” at the North Pole and dedicate the rest of his life and fortune to helping poor children.
Because of my childhood without Christmas, I wanted my book to pass along one simple message: When we help others in need or in great pain, that is the greatest gift we will ever receive.
Merry Christmas.