“We gave him the whole Sears Christmas Wish Book to choose from.  It’s the only thing he wants,” she said as she sucked in the filtered tar and nicotine from the Winston dangling from the corner of her mouth where her red lined lips met.

He was in the living room, putting together the aluminum Christmas tree in the corner, occasionally accidentally stabbing himself with the sharp tipped, color-coded ‘branches’ as he unwrapped them from the brown tissue paper tubes each one was sheathed in.  A long sip from the Welch’s Jelly jar of Old Grandad bourbon dulled the pain of those stabs, but not those of his knees from being on the hardwood floors for so long.  “Put on the Perry Como Christmas Album,” he said.  “Something to make it feel like Christmas in Fort Stockton when it’s in the 90s.”

She brought the bottle into the living room and topped him off.  She brought the Wish Book with her, hoping to get the thing settled so they could go to bed when they’d finished putting up the tree.  

“Damn,” he said as he glanced at the page the catalog was opened to.  “That’s a lot of scratch for one gift, $26.95.  Don’t recall ever getting a gift anywhere near that expensive when I was a kid.”

“Might have had something to do with a war going on when you were a kid,” she said.  “He’s got his heart set on it.”

He pulled the color wheel out of the box.  The tattered cardboard carton was about to disintegrate from being up in the heat of the attic for so many years.  Grabbing the plug, he rolled over on his back and reached for the socket, shoving in. Nothing.

Patiently watching the scene unfold in front of her, she said “Maybe it’s the bulb.  I’ll get a new one.”  She returned a few minutes later with a fresh bulb in her hand and a fresh Winton in her lips.  “Try this.”

He screwed in the bulb.  Nothing.  “A new color wheel on top of everything else.  Christmas is going to break me this year,” he said.  “Light me one of those.”  She gave him the cigarette she’d just lit and went to the kitchen to grab a new one for herself, and the bean bag-bottomed ash tray from the Formica topped kitchen table.

When she got back to the living room she plopped down on the couch, resting the ashtray atop her ever expanding belly, barely covered by a maternity blouse.  She didn’t want to even bring up the fact that the oven no longer got above 200 degrees inside.  Just one more expense she knew he’d be worried about.

“Is there a cheaper way to go?” he said.  He’d obviously been thinking about the pedal car.  “We could get him a handful of those MATCHBOX cars.  They look real.  Put a bunch of your empty wood thread spools in a shoe box.  He could play with that all the time, no matter what the weather was outside.  It’s too damn hot for him to be outside most of the time, anyway.”

“It’s the only thing he wants.  I know it’s expensive, but it’s Christmas,” she said.  She was tired.  She took a drag from the Winston, a sip of Old Grandad, and chuckled at the idea of a ‘White Christmas’ Perry Como was singing about, stirring ice cubes with her finger.

Three weeks later, they both smiled as the kid got into the new Tee-Bird the first time, Perry singing ‘There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays.’