One day near Christmas when I was just a child   Mama called us together and mama tried to smile   She said you know the cotton crop hadn't been too good this year   There's 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 is plenty to eat   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 most of all we had her      Roy cut down a pine oak tree and we drug it home Jack and me   Daddy killed a squirrel 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 kind of lean   After all there was the babies Tom and Joanne   And babies need a few things      I whittled a whistle for my brother Jack   And though we disagreed now and then   When I gave Jack that whistle he knew I thought the world of him   Mama made the girl's 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 as good as us   They didn't even have a light and it was way past dusk   And mama said, "Well I bet they don't even have coal oil   Let alone apples and oranges and such"      Me and Jack took a jar of coal oil nd some hickernuts we'd found   We walked to the sharecropper's porch and set 'em 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 quickly closed the door      We started back home me and Jack   And about halfway we stopped looked back   And in the sharecropper's window at last was 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   And my daddy put on his rubber boots   And paced the floor waiting for the thaw   Back home in Dyess Arkansas