Christmas Miracle

Have you wondered how this family spent Christmas under such poor circumstances? Again Annie West Neville tells of a Christmas while they were in the Sixth Ward and while her parents were teaching school. “Mother told us not to hang up our stockings as they had no money to give Santa Claus and he could not come to poor folks. In fact, there was no Santa Claus. We all felt very badly as the children in school told us what they were going to have him bring them. I prayed that there was a Santa Claus and hoped he would bring us something. My folks felt very badly about it. At about eleven o'clock that Christmas Eve, there was a rap on the door and in walked a man. He had his arms loaded with sacks of things for his children. He said, ‘Where are the children's stockings?’ My mother told him they had nothing to put in them. He was feeling good. He had had a little liquor. So he said, ‘Fetch the stockings here and I will put something in them.’ He opened his bags. He put oranges and candies and nuts in them; and gave my parents a little good cheer and left. He was a good neighbor. When we got up and saw our filled stockings, we were delighted. I thought surely that the Lord had heard my prayers and that there was a Santa Claus.”