Editor’s Note: Beard wrote this column in December.

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving and survived eating too much turkey with all the complimentary side dishes and desserts. 

Let us think back to our childhood days and recall, through the fog of too much turkey on the brain, a favorite Christmas story. I vividly recall the different Christmas trees that tickled my fancy as a young lad. It must have been a dry year with the rains coming wrong for the wheat, feed and bean crops but just right to raise Russian thistles which became large tumble weeds blowing across the prairies of northeastern New Mexico and building tremendous piles against the fence rows. Of course, as a young child, this was mostly lost on me, but I was excited about the Christmas season and had already dog-eared the Monkey Ward (Montgomery Ward for some of you younger folks) Christmas Catalog pouring over it with my brothers.

---

---

I must have been in about second grade or there-abouts. We had put up our Christmas tree complete with lights, ornaments and maybe 15-20 pounds of icicle tinsel. I was looking forward to visiting my grandfather and seeing his Christmas tree. We visited him almost every weekend, so I did not have much longer than an eternity to wait, or so it seemed to me. Finally, the weekend was there and out to grandpa’s we went.

Boy did I get a surprise. Grandpa had gathered a large tumble weed and decorated it as a Christmas tree. He secured it in a Folgers coffee can wrapped in aluminum foil to decorate it. The can was filled with gravel and sand for weight and stability. He then had hung miniature Christmas tree ornaments on it, the small multicolored glass balls. He must have had a set of 40. He strung popcorn on a thread which he draped around the “tree.” He had even cut some aluminum foil in thin strips with scissors to hang as icicles. I could hardly believe it, a tumbleweed Christmas tree. To say the least I was fascinated with it, but it just did not check all the boxes my young mind had set forth to meet the requirements of a first-class Christmas tree. But, as I recall gifts set around it just fine and it did bring a holiday look to the room.

---

---

As the years have flown by I have learned that many times true Christmas stories may not check off every tick mark to fit the perfect Christmas miracle list a small boy might have built up in his mind. Yet often they are more real and become great memories.

So come take a ride with me as Santa arrives on a different mode of transportation to deliver Christmas cheer.

Cowboy Santa Miracle

Life alone had not been easy,

She could afford no Christmas thrills.

The little money she had saved,

She would need to pay the bills.

Eyeing the children’s Christmas lists,

her heart aches and cracks.

She could not afford their Christmas joys,

Those were the cold, hard facts.

She had prayed for a Christmas miracle,

But Santa had not come through.

She thought of Christmas morning,

Oh, what was she to do?

But life is what it is,

She tried to do her best.

With Christmas morn’ a coming,

She had better get some rest.

The weight of life was hard,

She had just turned out the light.

When a horse whinnied from the yard,

It gave her quite a fright.

She had no saddle horse,

Since she had to sell Old Slate.

Now she wondered in the darkness,

Who could that be, so late?

She crept went to the door,

Peered through the window there.

A cowboy on a buckskin horse,

She saw in the moonlights’ glare.

He was dressed in red with white trim,

A big pack in his gear.

Curly white hair and tall black boots

She felt no need to fear.

He dismounted and, said,

” Now Buck, You stand!”

Then fed Buck a sugar cube,

He held hidden in his hand.

He shouldered his great big pack,

It was full of toys and things,

Candy canes and shiny presents,

Items a Christmas morning brings.

She invited the stranger in,

To warm back up and eat a bite.

He set his pack near her tree,

 in the room’s dim light.

He never said a word,

But let loose a laugh with glee.

From his pack he took out things,

Which he placed beneath the tree.

Items from the children’s lists,

She wondered how he knew.

He even left some gifts for her,

Before he was completely through.

Her gifts were wrapped in pretty paper,

But her name was on each label.

He then set out a Christmas bounty,

Right there on her kitchen table.

Walked back outside, and repacked Buck

Then he stepped up in the saddle.

As Buck jumped and soared,

She heard his spurs ring and rattle.

And then she heard him exclaim,

 as they disappeared from her sight,

“Have a Merry Christmas my friends,

God Bless, and to all a good night!”