How One Woman Saved Christmas When My Mother Told Me Christmas Was Gonners

DISCLAIMER: This is part of a sponsored collaboration with Minute Maid and DiMe Media. All opinions are my own.

Once upon a time when I was a little girl, I grew up loving Christmas. Not because of the presents, not because of the tamales (although, I totally love tamales), but because of how it seemed to bring us together as a family. My mother had a way of making it feel like a magical time and I loved every second of it. I never imagined that anything could ever threaten Christmas because like I said, it wasn’t about the presents and it wasn’t about the food, it was about us being together and about being grateful.

But one year, awful things happened. Things I can’t give you details on because I was a child and not privy to the difficult truths that my mother was facing. All I can tell you is that I had never seen my mother so weighed down with worry and thankfully I’ve never seen her that way since.

Things were so bad that my mother, who can turn any event into a celebration, sat me down and grimly told me that Christmas wasn’t happening for us that year. I was 10 years old at the time and I held it together while she told me, but I felt like something HUGE was being ripped away from me and it hurt in a deeply intense way.

Our home seemed sadder than it had ever been and there was no promise of any kind of holiday cheer. Then a miracle happened. A miracle by the name of Flor. She was our neighbor from across the street, a wife, the mother of one child and a woman that my mother confided in. Without making a big deal about it or telling anyone what she had in mind she showed up to our home one day. My mother wasn’t even there at the time (I don’t think that was a coincidence, I think Flor planned it that way), I was at home with my abuela.

In a matter of minutes, Flor transformed our home for the holidays. She put up a small table-top Christmas tree and she placed beautifully wrapped gifts around it for each of us. Flor un-canceled Christmas.

After she left, I sat there looking at the little tree she had brought us—admiring it like it was the most beautiful Christmas tree I’d ever seen and really it was because that tree was all love and kindness.

What Flor did, really was a miracle because when my mother came home and saw the tree, the presents and how happy I was, she was so genuinely touched that she couldn’t help but embrace the spirit of Christmas. We had a great Christmas that year. I can’t tell you what was inside the wrapped gifts that Flor brought for each of us because those gifts didn’t matter. What she gave us was Christmas itself. She made Christmas happen for me as a child and for us as a family and for that I will always be grateful.

I don’t know where Flor is now and I don’t think I ever got a chance to properly thank her for what she did. I hope that I somehow showed her my gratitude. I hope she could see it in my face as I looked in awe at that little table-top tree. I also hope that someday, out of nothing other than kindness I am able to pay it forward to a parent who needs help because sometimes parents need a reminder that they are doin’ good.

These stories that we have about parents who are #DoinGood are stories we need to share with each other because it’s important to recognize other parents and the great job they’re doing. Please, follow Minute Maid on Twitter and Facebook to share and read more #DoinGood stories like the one in the video below.

Your turn to tell me about a parent who is #doingood or has done good by you! Leave a comment telling me about someone you know who is doing a better job as a parent than he or she might think.