Herbie's Christmas Story

Anyone who has ever seen National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation might get an idea of the kind of Yuletide fanatic my late father-in-law was. Like Chevy Chase’s Clark Griswold, Herbie hung colored lights, tinsel, and silver bells on anything in his home that didn’t have a pulse. Christmas was his special time. He loved to have friends and family to the house. He filled his front yard with inflatable and illuminated Santa, Frosty, and Rudolph statues. He even strung colored lights around the interior of his living room and left them up all year.

Herbie’s been gone for several years now, but I still remember this story he told me of a memorable Christmas Eve during the Great Depression. He was a boy of maybe twelve or fourteen at the time who’d grown up the oldest son of a family of pious Roman Catholics in Metuchen, New Jersey. Even as a lad, Herbie loved to sing. On Christmas Eve he, his next-oldest brother, George, and a playmate whom I’ll call “Bobby” (I’ve long since forgotten the boy’s name, and Herbie isn’t around to ask anymore) would go door-to-door serenading the neighbors with Christmas carols. Money was tight in those days, but these young entrepreneurs figured they could earn a few pennies, nickels, or dimes by their musical talents. Herbie and George sang while Bobby accompanied them on the harmonica. The few dollars they earned allowed their mothers to buy Christmas toys for the younger children at the local Woolworth’s.

Unfortunately, on this particular Christmas, Bobby had left the neighborhood and moved several blocks away. This wasn’t an uncommon event during the Depression when food money was scarce and families often sent children to live with relatives who were better able to provide for them. Undaunted, Herbie and George set off through the streets of Metuchen to locate their friend and begin their caroling enterprise. It was late afternoon of Christmas Eve and heavy snow had begun to fall over the town. The boys walked through the wintry whiteness, block after block, not entirely certain of their friend’s whereabouts. They turned down the street where they believed Bobby had been taken in. I imagine their feet making huge divots in the fresh snow as they squinted through the feathery white flakes for a number on a mailbox or doorpost. At last they came to house which seemed to Herbie to be the right one. He marched up the walk and knocked with his mitten-clad hand on the door.

The door opened, and a man he and George had never seen before looked down at the two boys.

“Can I help you?” asked the man.

“We’re looking for Bobby,” Herbie said.

“No one here by that name,” replied the man. “What are you boys doing out in this weather?”

“We’re carolers,” said Herbie. “Our friend Bobby plays the mouth harp while my brother and I sing.”

The man smiled. “I think I know of your friend,” he said. “There’s a boy about your age around here who plays the harmonica, but he lives the next block over. I’m not sure which house.”

Herbie’s face fell. “Oh,” he said. “You see, Mister, we need him to help us earn our Christmas money. But we’re sorry we bothered you.”

The boys turned to go, but the man called them back. “Wait,” he said. “Just what would you boys do if I gave you five dollars?”

This was quite an amazing question. Five bucks in those grim days of the 1930’s was a fortune to a couple of lads like Herbie and George. Herbie answered the man honestly. “I’d take it home and give it to my mother,” he said.

The stranger reached into his pocket and pulled out five dollar bills and handed them to Herbie. “Merry Christmas,” he said. Herbie stuffed the bills into his pocket, thanked the stranger, and he and George raced back home through the falling snow. This was a windfall, a virtual Christmas miracle! Five whole dollars! The boys couldn’t believe their good fortune. Five bucks could sure buy a lot of joy from the Five-and-Ten!

As the brothers made their way through the snowy streets, a thought occurred to Herbie. His father was a very proud man who might not take kindly to his boys accepting charity. To Pop, money was to be earned. Herbie realized that he and George hadn’t sung a note in exchange for the bonanza of cash stuffed in his pant pocket. His father wouldn’t like this.

“Don’t tell Pop how we got the money,” Herbie told George. “Just say we earned it singing.” The little brother agreed, and the two presented the cash to their mother who happily set off for the Woolworth store. Later that night, however, Herbie’s conscience got the better of him. The family was preparing to go to midnight mass, and Herbie felt uncomfortable receiving the Sacrament after having told his parents a lie. Reluctantly, he confessed the truth to his father.

As far as I know, Herbie was never punished for the fib, but his father insisted that, since the money had already been spent, the only right thing to do was for Herbie to take him to the man’s house so he could shake the generous fellow’s hand and formally thank him on behalf of his children. The day after Christmas Herbie set off with his father to the kind man’s house. Unfortunately, having been confused by the snow and excited by the gift, he couldn’t remember the right street. He never again saw the man who had been so generous and kind, who had made this one Christmas so special.

When Herbie told me this story, I thought it captured the meaning of Christmas. God loves us and provides for us—as Luther would say—daily and abundantly. We can’t earn the gift of the Christ child and the redemption which that child came to bring us. We do nothing to make ourselves worthy of it. It’s a gift. God loves us. God just does. And, as grateful as our hearts are, we can never truly express our thanks. We will never, in this life, see our Benefactor face to face. The best we can do—as Herbie always did—is celebrate that generosity in our hearts, and pass it on to others as often as we can.

May God bless you and those you love this Christmas and throughout the New Year.