The Christmas Santa Didn’t Forget Momma

We were always broke, piney-woods broke, ,the kind of broke where beans and rice were a regular rotation, and cornbread meant Momma was feeling downright fancy. But Momma had this way of turning even the simplest things into celebration.

“Guess what, kids!” she’d shout from that tiny kitchen, waving her wooden spoon like a magic wand. “It’s beans and rice and I’m even making cornbread!”

We cheered every time.
Because it wasn’t the food.
It was her.

Momma gave joy the way other folks pass the salt, effortlessly, freely, without keeping score. And if she had an extra dollar? It went to us. Every time.

But that one Christmas…
that was the year Santa must’ve teamed up with Momma herself.

She’d just started working at Kmart, tired in a way only grown-ups understand, but humming Christmas carols under her breath. When the big, glossy holiday catalogs arrived, we circled bicycles we had no business dreaming about. Chrome. Tassels. Baskets. Pure childhood magic.

What we didn’t know was that Momma was quietly slipping into the layaway department, handing over wrinkled bills and whispered hope.

But that year… we wanted to give something too.

Momma never got gifts, not from Santa, and not from anyone.
Whenever we asked why, she’d shrug and say:

“Santa brings presents for kids, which means your daddy probably still gets one… Santa’s nicer than I am.”

Her tone said everything.

So we set out to make her something with our own little hands.

We went into the woods and found thin, bendy twigs, just flexible enough to twist into a circle. Then we stuffed pine branches into every gap. The sap glued our fingers together like nature’s superglue, and our sister swore that meant it’d “stick to the wall better.”
(It did not.)

Then came the part we loved most.

We dug through Momma’s sewing scraps, bright reds, soft greens, tiny strips of white lace, and pieces of floral fabric from clothes she’d patched over the years. We tied every piece onto the wreath, our fingers sticking together from sap, our imaginations running wild.

And in our eyes, those scraps became magical.

The red strips turned into poinsettias.
The soft greens looked like fresh holly leaves.
And the delicate white lace resembled tiny snowflakes scattered across a winter forest.

It was still crooked.
Still a little sad.
Still dropping pine needles like nervous confetti.

But when we stepped back, with sap on our elbows and hope in our hearts, we thought it was the most enchanting wreath in the whole world.

We hid it under the couch so Momma wouldn’t see it before Christmas morning.

✨ Christmas Morning ✨

Something woke us up before dawn, a whisper, a flicker, the kind of quiet magic that only visits sleepy houses on Christmas.

We tiptoed into the living room…
and stopped.

There they were:

Brand-new bicycles.
Streamers. Chrome. Baskets.
Everything we’d circled in the catalogs.

The room felt warmer than it should’ve.
The lights twinkled like they were winking.
And for one heartbeat, we thought we heard a soft jingle, just one, fading away in the dark.

And then, without waiting for permission, without waiting for daylight, we grabbed those bikes, pulled socks onto our hands for mittens, the thickest, warmest, best-idea-we-ever-had mittens, and burst out the front door.

It was still pitch-dark outside, that deep, early-morning darkness where the porch light doesn’t stretch past the stairs and your breath hangs thick in the cold air.

We rode up and down the dirt road guided only by the moon and that Christmas-morning magic.
Hair flying.
Teeth chattering.
Laughing like we owned the whole world,
even though the world was still asleep.

When we finally slipped back inside, shivering and breathless, Momma was standing by the tree…crying.

Happy tears.

Because sitting right next to her chipped coffee cup
was something we had never seen before:

A present with Momma’s name on it.
From Santa.

She opened it slowly, carefully, like she didn’t want the moment to end.
Inside was a simple silver locket.
Shining. Lovely. Hers.

“I guess Santa remembered me this year,” she whispered.

That was our cue.

We pulled out the wreath, pine needles raining down, and placed it in her hands.

She traced her fingers over the red “poinsettias,” the green “holly leaves,” and the tiny white “snowflakes,” seeing them exactly the way we did.

“Oh my stars…” she said softly, her voice catching.
“It’s beautiful. Truly beautiful.”

And right then, the whole room changed.

The lights glowed a little brighter.
The air felt warmer.
You could almost feel the magic lingering in the corners, watching her with a quiet smile.

It was as if Santa himself paused for a moment, proud that Momma finally got a bit of the magic she spent her whole life giving away.

Before I wrap up this week’s story, I want to share a personal reflection…

🍂 Author’s Note from PJ Hamilton

As Thanksgiving approaches, I find myself thinking a lot about gratitude, not the glossy, picture-perfect kind, but the kind that grows on you with time and tenderness.

Writing these Christmas stories has brought back memories I used to carry with a heavy heart. For years, all I could see was the struggle, the lack, the things we didn’t have, the things I thought I needed from my parents but didn’t receive.

But now, with distance and healing, I can see the truth:

Momma loved us with everything she had.
It wasn’t perfect or polished.
It wasn’t wrapped in pretty paper.
But it was unconditional and it was real.

She took pennies and turned them into purpose.
She took scraps and turned them into comfort.
She took hard days and turned them into joy.

And today, I am grateful for the way we grew up.

Grateful for the simple things:
the beans and rice, the sock-mittens, the magical little wreath, and the way she made Christmas morning feel like a miracle.

Grateful for a Momma who was overwhelmed and exhausted and still found a way to make us feel like the luckiest kids in the world.

And grateful for the healing that allows me to look back now
and see not just what we lacked…
but what we had in abundance.

Love.
Joy.
Magic.
And a woman who gave every bit of it to us.

Thank you for reading,
and for sharing these moments of memory and meaning with me.

With love and Happy Thanksgiving,
PJ Hamilton