Essay: Mom, Memories and My Sears Roebuck Guitar

LANESBORO — It was my 42nd Christmas and I knew I’d be receiving something I’d wanted for a very long time—a beautiful, handmade, Alvarez guitar.

Words can never express what it means that my family believed I deserved something so beautiful and expensive. It is a feeling of wonder and awe—much like the emotion that washed over me when I received my first guitar 25 years earlier.

Even at sixteen, the magic of Christmas was alive and kicking in our quaint, red and white Nebraska home. The fire of the spirit glowed brighter each year although one might have expected it to have dimmed after countless Christmas preparations over the years by my mother.

With eight kids ranging in age, mom had lots of help from older siblings who were readily available to aid in planning, preparing and surprising the younger ones.

Each year, after taking in the Bob Hope Christmas Special, we faithfully followed our traditional routine of leaving cookies for Santa, putting on our warm pajamas, and saying our prayers, finishing off with “Goodnight, God Bless You, and I love you.” Then, pretending to be asleep, we would prick up our ears, hoping to hear footsteps of Santa and Rudolph on our roof.

Waking with a fever of excitement on Christmas morning, we would run down the stairs to the living room, sounding like a herd of elephants, and charge into the living room to find our gifts carefully arranged in front of the tinsel-covered Christmas tree.

There we would find our presents with personally addressed notes to each one of us that read something like, “To Ann, From Santa.” Sometimes we received what we asked for; sometimes we were surprised with a nice substitute, but nothing could take away from the absolute wonder of the moment that my mother had secretly created for each of us.

As we grew older, the gifts were fewer and larger.

As a result, we became more specific about what we wanted. For three years straight, I found myself timidly asking for the same gift—an acoustic guitar.

Singing had been such an integral part of me, and a guitar seemed a necessary part of the package. I would often daydream of sitting under a tree, strumming the strings and composing sweet melodies.

But every year I found something different under the tree. One year it was a little black and white television for my room, and although it was a nice addition, it lacked the ability to be strummed.

Eventually, I began to get the impression that my singing was not quite as important to Santa as it was to me. Maybe it was because the task of buying a guitar was so very challenging since “Santa” didn’t drive and wasn’t exactly the type to visit pawn shops. Realizing this only added to the hopelessness of the situation, and I finally gave up asking.

I wonder today if Santa somehow knew that having a guitar at too young of an age might have caused it to be left in the corner collecting dust—because one day, finally, after all the years of wishing, dreaming and hoping, it happened.

On the Christmas that I was sixteen, in 1977, I saw it!

As soon as my head cleared the stairway of my attic room, my eyes locked on the beautiful instrument, and everything else became a blur. I swear it glowed and sparkled like a diamond.

The Sears Roebuck guitar was probably worth no more than 25 dollars, but to me it was priceless.

More than a piece of wood with steel strings attached, it was a symbol of an understanding of the place that music had in my heart. It spoke to me of the long, hard journey taken to find it and bring it home to me.

I cherish that gift even today and especially the memory of the joy I experienced on that special Christmas. I was sixteen, but my heart was full of the wonder of a five-year old when I picked up my guitar, held it in my hands, turned over the note and read:

“To Ann…with all of my love, From Santa.”