Gift giving on credit

Everyone remembers their first time. For me, it was Christmas 1968.

 In my early years, I was a Christmas gift-giving addict. When my grandfather would give me $10.00 for Christmas, I would spend it on Christmas Gifts. For example, I gave my cousin Nancy an oversized bottle of Evening in Paris every year, paying a dollar or two for a bottle of perfume I thought she loved. That is, until a few years later, she told me she had a large perfume collection in the attic.

Dad's gifts led to a drawer stuffed with white handkerchiefs.

Years later, when I finally got a Charge Card of my own, I was delighted to be able to give more meaningful gifts. Like the character in Arsenic and Old Lace, I ran through the stores yelling CHARGE!

It took many years to break my credit card addiction – I ran out of money.

However, the most meaningful Christmas buying came with my first charge account. To this day, I remember getting that approval letter in the mail. I should have framed it.

I was working for $39.00 weekly at a factory job. Back then, getting credit was more challenging than it is today. The only store that did not turn me down was a costly and upscale department store called Filene's.

In the late fall, my sister Rose left her abusive husband and moved into a Public Housing apartment with three-year-old Joey and 4-year-old Rosie. To support her and the kids, my sister went to work as a waitress at night while I watched the kids. Rose likes to display a tough persona and gives back as good as she got when standing up for herself. She loved telling the story of how she punched her soon-to-be ex-husband when she found him with another woman and tossed his clothes out of a third-story window.

So, finding Rose distraught one night was out of character. While she was careful with her money, she could not give her kids a Christmas. I did not help much by taking her kids to see Santa.

"I just have enough for food and rent. The kids are so excited about Christmas; I do not want to see them disappointed."

Here, I could play Santa and use my charge account for the first time. With my high-interest rate in an expensive store charge, I went on a spending spree to buy toys for the kids. 

I bet you thought this was a story of two sweet little innocent angels who wake up squealing with delight seeing their toys and go to bed with sugar plums dancing in their heads. Except over Joey's head was not a halo, but a pair of devil's horns.

More than once, Joey would get out of bed in the middle of the night and empty the refrigerator on the floor. He would grab the catchup, pickles, mustard, and eggs to smear and empty the bottles on the floor. 

Little Rose would watch him make a mess and give a detailed report about his misdeed rather than wake my sister.

Still, I could not deny them a visit from Santa with many toys, even as Joey pulled down the Christmas tree and broke many of the newly bought ornaments.

Joey was so preoccupied with his new toys that he gave his mom two weeks of quiet.

It was broken when he lined up all the eggs against my sister's back as she slept on her side. He then woke her up.

He missed the part about being naughty or nice.