My most precious Christmas gift was bestowed upon me 50 years ago this holiday season–December 1952. We were a lonesome bunch of dogface infantrymen in Korea, thousands of miles from home.
We were back in reserve when I received a mailing tube from home in northern Wisconsin. My father had topped a tree and telescoped it into the tube. He had also included two pieces of lath with a nail taped to it and instructions to make an X of the lath pieces and use the nail as a spike to hold the “tree.” He had drilled holes in the lath and even into the tree trunk.
All the guys pitched in and donated bows and colorful seals and even strung popcorn to decorate “our” tree.
My father was neither a religious nor emotional man, but that token of his love will stay with me forever.
