Christmas As I Knew It

[Verse]
One day near Christmas when I was just a child
Mama called us all together and mama tried to smile
She said "You know the cotton crop hadn't been too good this year
There's just not a lot of spending money and
Well, at least we're all here
I hope you won't expect a lot of Christmas presents
Just be thankful that there's plenty to eat and we're all healthy
And that'll make things a little more pleasant"
And us kids got to thinking how really blessed we were
At least we were all healthy and best of all we had her
My brother Roy cut down a pig apple tree
And we drug it home, Jack and me
Daddy brought home some hickernuts and Louise made the bread
Reba decorated the tree with popcorn strings before we went to bed
Mama and daddy sacrificed because this Christmas was lean
But after all there was the babies, Joanne and Tommy
And babies need a few things
I whittled a whistle for my brother Jack
And though we fought now and then
When I gave Jack that whistle he knew I thought the world of him
Mama made the girls dresses out of flower sacks
And when she ironed them down
You couldn't tell that they hadn't come from town
A sharecropper family across the road didn't have it good as us
They didn't even have a light that Christmas night
And it was way past dusk
Me and Jack took a jar of coal oil and some peanuts we'd found
And walked over to the sharecropper's porch and set it all down
A poor old ragged lady eased open the door
She picked up the coal oil and hickernuts and said
"I sure do thank you" and she quickly closed the door
We started back home, me and Jack and about halfway we stopped and looked back
And in the sharecropper's window at last there burned a light
So for one of the neighbors and for us
It was a good Christmas night
Christmas came and Christmas went
Christmas that year was Heaven-sent
Then daddy put on his gum boots and we waited for the thaw
Back home that year in Dyess, Arkansas
Merry Christmas, mama