Take Your Opportunity to Spread Christmas!
A Sailor's Christmas Gift
Chief of Naval Operations
Washington, D.C.
Dear Admiral:
Last year at Christmas time, my wife, our three boys and I were in France on our way from Paris to Nice in a rented car. For five wretched days everything had gone wrong. On Christmas Eve, when we checked into our hotel in Nice, there was no Christmas spirit in our hearts.
It was raining and cold when we went out to eat. We found a drab little restaurant shoddily decorated for the holiday. Only five tables were occupied. There were two German couples, two French families, and an American sailor. While eating, he was writing a letter.
My wife ordered our meal in French. The waiter brought us the wrong thing. I scolded my wife for being stupid.
Then, at the table with the French family on our left, the father slapped one of his children for some minor infraction, and the boy began to cry.
On our right, the German wife began berating her husband.
All of us were interrupted by an unpleasant blast of cold air. Through the front door came an old flower woman. She wore a dripping, tattered overcoat, and shuffled in on wet, rundown shoes. She went from one table to the other.
"Flowers, Monsieur? Only one franc." No one bought any.
Wearily she sat down at a table between the sailor and us. To the waiter she said, "A bowl of soup. I haven't sold a flower all afternoon." To the piano player she said hoarsely, "Can you imagine, Joseph, soup on Christmas Eve?"
He pointed to his empty "tipping plate."
The young sailor finished his meal and got up. Putting on his coat, he walked over to the flower woman's table.
"Happy Christmas," he said, smiling and picking out two corsages. "How much are they?"
"Two francs, Monsieur."
Pressing one of the small corsages flat, he put it into the letter he had written, then handed the woman a 20-franc note.
"I don't have change, Monsieur," she said. "I'll get some from the waiter."
"No, Ma'am," said the sailor, leaning over and kissing the ancient cheek. "This is my Christmas present to you."
Then he came to our table, holding the other corsage in front of him. "Sir," he said to me, "may I have permission to present these flowers to your beautiful daughter?"
In one quick motion he gave my wife the corsage, wished us a Merry Christmas and departed. Everyone had stopped eating. Everyone had been watching the sailor.
A few seconds later Christmas exploded throughout the restaurant like a bomb.
The old flower woman jumped up, waving the 20-franc note, shouted to the piano player, "Joseph, my Christmas present! And you shall have half so you can have a feast too."
The Piano player began to belt out Good King Wenceslaus.
My wife waved her corsage in time to the music. She appeared 20 years younger. She began to sing, and our three sons joined her, bellowing with enthusiasm.
"Gut! Gut!" shouted the Germans. They began singing in German.
The waiter embraced the flower woman. Waving their arms, they sang in French.
The Frenchman who had slapped the boy beat rhythm with his fork against a glass. The lad, now on his lap, sang in a youthful soprano.
A few hours earlier 18 persons had been spending a miserable evening. It ended up being the happiest, the very best Christmas Eve they ever had experienced.
This, Admiral, is what I am writing you about. As the top man in the Navy, you should know about the very special gift that the U.S. Navy gave to my family, to me and to the other people in that French restaurant. Because your young sailor had Christmas spirit in his soul, he released the love and joy that had been smothered within us by anger and disappointment. He gave us Christmas.
Thank you, Sir, and Merry Christmas!
Bill Lederer, 1963