1968

“Pollyanna ”

Christmas 1968

By Charles Moon

     Grade school never involved itself much with the Christmas holiday. The public schools in suburban Philadelphia took the separation of church and state very seriously, even though, as far as I knew, every child who attended that school practiced some form of Christianity. The holiday season, therefore, was used to split the school year into two equal semesters. The students, myself included, were more occupied with the barrage of tests and the anticipation of an extended vacation from the rigors of studying, than extending the Christmas spirit to each other. Christmas was only discussed for a few days following the return to classes in January with chorus after chorus of “what did you get?” turning the gifts into a competition for the best, most or costliest present received. The gifts given to the Branch children were creative, thoughtful, practical and many times unusual. They were not trendy, flashy, expensive or extravagant, so Terry and I avoided the topic as much as possible. I suppose that’s one of the reasons why we grew up with the impression that the whole world but us had perfect Christmases every year.

      Fourth grade was the year we began to learn about the rites and practices of other cultures. What better way to do this than to discuss all the different celebrations around the time of the winter solstice. Shortly after Thanksgiving our teacher, Miss Baker, began the lessons on the origins of Chanukah and Christmas from a historical perspective with a little bit of Celtic practices thrown in, just to establish the origin of the Christmas tree. By the time we were approaching the weeklong period of tests and assemblies immediately before school was dismissed for the semester, we had arrived at the practice of gift giving in our studies. The teacher thought it would be fun for each child to participate in an amusing practice called a Pollyanna to learn the joy of anonymous gift giving.

      We all wrote our names on slips of paper that Miss Baker distributed, making sure they were all very similar to each other. Then she collected them and put them in her empty wastebasket on top of her desk. One by one each student went up to the front of the class and drew a name from the steel cylinder and took it back to their desks. Miss Baker cautioned us to keep the names we now held a secret and then instructed us to write our own names on the back of the paper and return it to the wastebasket. This way she would be able to guarantee that no one was left out of the game, and if someone would be absent or forget to bring the package with them, she could have a few stand-by presents so that nobody left empty handed.

      It all seemed so exciting at the time, and it was indeed fun, if not quite the education Miss Baker had hoped it might be. We were dismissed with a simple set of rules to follow. Each of us was to purchase one gift for the person identified on our sheet of paper. The cost of each gift was not to exceed $2.00, which, in 1968 was plenty of money for a trinket from the five and ten cent store and still within the budget of the average 9-year old.

      Miss Baker recorded each child’s gift assignment in her grade book for easy reference. Then, using the wisdom and experience of all her years as a fourth grade teacher, Miss Baker called each parent and explained the game to them directly. She even identified who the secret recipient was for every child, in case they had a difficult time being able to choose an appropriate gift. It was her intention to have the parents use this information only if necessary, and still keep the actual exchange completely anonymous, but by the next morning, most of the children knew who was supposed to be buying a gift for them.

      Sly nods and winks were bandied about the classroom all day. Quiet whispers suggesting what might be a good present were passed between friends, making sure that the message arrived at the proper desk before any real purchases were made. One student was so forward as to confront another child in the hallway and say “you better get me something good” in the way a bully menaces his victim. Miss Baker spent the better part of the day reminding us that it was not the gift that was important, but it was the act of giving – especially without the reward of acknowledgement – that made this anonymous practice so peculiarly appropriate for the season. We left the classroom with the her voice still echoing in our ears, “It’s the thought that counts,” and “It’s better to give than to receive.”

      Everyone got the message very clearly. Pretend you do not know who you are supposed to be getting a gift from or Miss Baker will get mad. Yes, we got that point very well.

      1968 was a leap year, placing Christmas day on a Wednesday. The Friday preceding that day was to be the last day of school and the day we would finally get to exchange the “secret” presents. Mom took me Woolworth’s on Tuesday to select the gift I was supposed to buy for Johnny Gordon so I would have plenty of time to wrap it.

      Woolworth’s had aisles of items specifically identified as suitable Christmas presents. Candles, clocks, electric razors and commemorative snow globes showing, when shaken, silver and blue glitter falling on boathouse row along the Schuylkill River were just a few of the more adult gifts available. The toy section was not any easier to navigate, with big bins of shrink wrapped toys all priced as clearance. I had to limit myself to only those items under $2 so I was confined to the very end of the discount aisle where they had assembled the cheapest of plastic toys. Red water pistols or clear box puzzles of perforated cardboard and a single ball bearing seemed to be the only thing within my budget. I could have easily grabbed one of those items which would have been well received (except for the girls if I had opted for the water pistol) but I wanted to find something special.

      The gift needed to be unique and unusual with the potential for hours of fascination, just like the saw mom had bought me the previous year. I left the toy department, much to the chagrin of my mother who kept asking me if I knew what I thought Johnny Gordon might really like. Johnny Gordon would have probably been happy with the water pistol, but I was going to get him a better gift, in spite of himself.

      I browsed two aisles, then three. A half-hour turned into 45 minutes and then into an hour. Mom was growing increasingly impatient with me because nothing was satisfying me even though I had dismissed several perfectly acceptable items. Then, after a full hour and a half at the end of the seventh aisle, I found what I was looking for.

      It was small, and I wasn’t quite sure what it was at first. It was made of glass and plastic and tied with a wire to a card. It had what looked like two small test tubes connected in the middle with a narrow opening. The top tube was empty while the lower one was filled with a white granular powder. Green octagonal caps were glued on each end of the test tubes so the entire contraption could stand upright on a table. The price read $1.99. It was perfect.

      We learned earlier that year how ancient cultures used to measure the passage of short periods of time by allowing specified amounts of sand to drain out of containers with holes in them. We had seen an actual demonstration during a field trip to the Franklin Institute when we were studying this in class. When these ancients took to the sea, the explorers sealed the devices in glass so the sand would not get wet or blown away and the modern hourglass was born.

      This looked like an exact replica in miniature. I grabbed it off the shelf and turned it over. As I had hoped, the fine white crystalline sand in the vials began to trickle though the narrow hole in the end of the full side into the empty side. Exactly three minutes later, the last granule of sand passed through the hole and I inverted the package to repeat the process. I could have stood there all night and watched the little stream of sand settle into conical piles, but the store was going to be closing in a few minutes and we had to leave.

      “Are you sure Johnny Gordon will like this?” mom asked for the third time.

      I nodded my head enthusiastically. How could she not see how right this gift was? A plastic gun or cheap puzzle would be played with for a few minutes but this “egg timer” as it read on the package could hold a kid’s interest for hours. And, I thought, it even measured how long three minutes was, should Johnny Gordon ever need to know.

      I left the timer tied to its card so not to destroy the “store-bought” quality of the gift but I left it unwrapped until Thursday night. I was fascinated watching the sand seep through the little hole never quite the same way twice. I began to wish I could keep the egg timer, instead of whatever I was going to be given tomorrow, but then I thought about how excited Johnny would be to get this unusually perfect present from his anonymous benefactor. It was, after all, the giving that was important and not the gift. That’s what we were always told. And, I felt good about giving this gift, and the thought behind it.

      Friday was the last day before the holiday break in classes. All the tests had been taken and graded. There was nothing more to be accomplished with study so Miss Baker organized a little party for the class culminating in the secret exchange of gifts. The mother’s of the children had also been invited and generously brought along plates of cookies and cupcakes decorated with red and green sugar, in honor of the season. We brought milk from the cafeteria to the classroom and the party started in earnest.

      At 11:00 a.m. exactly, Miss Baker asked that every child take his assigned seat so that we could begin the gift exchange. The mothers moved to the sides and back of the rooms lining the walls like sentinels and we anxiously scrambled to our places. Each child was to have wrapped the gift plainly with only the name of the person who was to receive it hand written somewhere visible. The packages were then to be collected and distributed by miss Baker, but in the confusion of the morning she had forgotten to collect them. All the gifts were tucked neatly away inside our respective desks.

      Miss Baker walked to Amy Bersten’s desk and took her package and read the name. Then she looked out over the class and realized that if she did this on an individual basis, everybody would know who the gift was from. It was hardly the lesson in anonymous giving she was attempting to teach. Collecting the gifts now was only slightly better since everyone would see what the packages looked like and still know who gave what to whom. Miss Baker gave Amy her box back and sat down at her own desk for a moment.

      Our teacher instructed us all to stand up with our gifts and walk out in the hallway. We were to come back in single file and leave the present on the desk of our Pollyanna as we passed by. This worked for the first three people, but we were not instructed what to do beyond that so those three students sat at their desks. You can imagine that there were no gifts for them yet so when their person came to them, they were sitting right there. Miss Baker stopped the line in the middle and told the seated students to rejoin the end of the line. The kids still in the hallway had not heard the instructions and continued to push into the room. A few of the mothers tried directing the children in an effort to help but only added to the confusion. Finally Miss Baker loudly announced that we were just to find the person for whom our gift was intended and give it to them. As expected the room dissolved rapidly into chaos. Voices became elevated and children started excitedly opening the packages to find cheap plastic toys and boxes of crayons. Amy Bersten shyly approached me and, with a blush and a giggle, handed me the box that only a few moments ago had been handed back to her by Miss baker. Right behind her was Johnny Gordon pushing his way toward me with an outstretched hand. He was obviously aware of who had been his secret Pollyanna.

      I handed him the package that I had brought with me, wrapped in red construction paper, and watched him tear it open with hopeful anticipation. Johnny looked at the glass and plastic device tied to the cardboard backing and then looked at me. Johnny’s mother followed him between the desks and was now right behind him. Johnny took my thoughtfully perfect present and shoved it into his mother’s hand.

      “This is stupid.”

      His face was red with anger and embarrassment. He turned away, calling me names.

      His mother looked down at the egg timer and then at me as if I had lost my mind. I just stood there dumbfounded. Mrs. Gordon looked at me once more as if I was either insane or deliberately selected this item to make Johnny look foolish and then chased after Johnny to console him, since I had ruined the party with such a stupid gift.

      I wanted to run. I wanted to cry. I wanted to go home and hide. I wanted to take that stupid egg timer back to the store and get the red water pistol. It didn’t matter, I had already ruined everything.

      Mom took me home trying to reassure me that everything would be all right and not to worry about kids like Johnny, but I knew better. I did, however, learn a good lesson that year. If the gift isn’t good in the eyes of the receiver, the thought doesn’t matter. Merry Christmas 1968.

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