The "family" Christmas was on the Saturday right after school was out for the holiday vacation. Aunt Betje made it a Dutch Christmas. Dutch food is almost like American food except they have Dutch names for stuff. But it was good. They had ham instead of turkey but the best part was all the Dutch cookies and cakes Aunt Betje made. Aunt Myrt helped too. She and Aunt Betje have gotten to be really good friends. They were really, really, really funny. Sometimes they said stuff that had you giggling until your sides hurt.
Aunt Myrt was learning to talk like a regular American. She told some of those ladies that came to help her that she was embarrassed to be with them because she talked like a cracker and they said that they would help her if she wanted them to. She did and was learning to talk right really, really, really fast.
Marty got a lot of stuff he didn't know what he was going to do with but he understood that the gifts meant the people loved him and that made them good. He got some stuff he had asked for. He'd asked Uncle Henry. That Santa stuff, Aunt Betje called him, Sinterklaas, never did make sense to him but he pretended with Aunt Myrt and Uncle Ces for the twins and for Freddy who kinda wondered if there really was one but wasn't taking any chances.
He got the mute for his horn he had asked for and some more Atari games. He really couldn't think of anything else he wanted. He had too much stuff now. Marty's best gift that day was watching the other kids at the house open their presents. Freddy had never had a Christmas and, while the twins had had Christmas, it had never been as bountiful as this one. They got stuff, not only from Aunt Mryt and Uncle Ces and Aunt Betje and Uncle Reind and of course Uncle Henry and Marty and Larry but also from all those ladies who were helping at Aunt Myrt's and they were really happy. Marty, however, felt two things. It made him feel really, really, really good to see the kids so happy but he was a little mad that those people could give things instead of love. Those kids needed a home like he had with Uncle Henry - not just toys and clothes and stuff.
Linda wasn't there. Mr. Brainard's wife helped at Aunt Myrt's and she got to like Linda really good. She had only sons and the last one went to college in Scotland in September and decided to stay over Christmas so he could see how they did things in Scotland at Christmas time. Her other two sons lived in California and weren't coming home this year. Irene Brainard could not imagine a Christmas without a child there and Linda would give her a chance to do what she'd always wanted to do - buy and do girl things at Christmas time. Marty thought maybe - just maybe Linda could get a home.
It was a really fun day. Marty kind of wished Thanksgiving and Christmas didn't come so close together. You do all that good stuff at once and then have to wait a whole year to do it again.
It turned out that Freddy was going to get to go somewhere too. Fred Fulmore got permission from Jill Monroe to take Freddy to Green Bay with him. Both Fred and his wife were from Green Bay so Freddy had three Christmases. He got a lot of stuff. He also got a ride in this huge truck. Fred's brother owned a trucking company and one of his drivers was sick the day after Christmas so Ted had to run the load down to Milwaukee. Freddy really had fun.
Marty kind of wondered what the big deal was about Hawaii. It was really, really, really neat but it was warm and there was no snow. You're supposed to have snow at Christmas. But, it was kind of fun. He spent every morning the first week, except Christmas day, in a baseball camp in Honolulu. After the first day, one of the coaches told Henry, "That kid's got talent. On Friday, Marty won an award as the most talented ten-year-old. Henry had thought he looked good compared to the other boys and girls but he was far from objective. He was pleased, however that his evaluation was correct. He was proud but not really surprised. His Little Bird had always been very agile and athletic and the last eight months of good nourishment and hard play had filled the boy out and made him stronger. But filled-out and strong or not, as far as Henry was concerned, his Little Bird was the best at everything.
Afternoons and the second week were spent on the beach and doing some island hopping. They went to the Big Island to see the volcanoes, which Marty pronounced really, really, really, really, really neat and they went up to Kauai because it was The Garden Island and Henry wanted to see it. They went to a luau and it was pretty good. Marty liked some of the meat but he wasn't crazy about the fish. Poi was yuck! It was fun to see Hula Dancers and the guys spinning burning sticks.
Hawaii was O. K. but, even with all that stuff to do and see, the best part of Hawaii was the same as the best part of home - cuddling into Uncle Henry's lap. Actually he loved the beach but when you've lived like Marty you don't know that getting to go to Hawaii is supposed to cause a major Marty Moment. He found lots of kids to play with. He thought that surfing looked fun but he had never been around lakes or oceans and was a little afraid of deep water. He'd also heard that there were sharks in oceans. There were guys to give lessons but Marty didn't want to try it.
He liked the plane ride but he went to Alaska and all those parks on a plane so it wasn't all that exciting. All those places were nice but none compared with Uncle Henry's lap. Marty was ten now and he wondered how old you had to be before you couldn't do that anymore. He knew it had to be older than thirteen because Larry still sat on his dad's lap. Marty hoped it was a hundred. He couldn't imagine life without cuddling into Uncle Henry.
Larry got his picture in the paper with Ferdinand at the nativity scene. Uncle Reind also took a bunch of pictures. It was neat. They had Ferdinand and a donkey and a bunch of sheep. Marty knew why they had the donkey. He heard this Christmas song about an ox and ass sleeping in the same place as Baby Jesus. They had real people playing Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and Wise Men but they had a doll play baby Jesus. It's too cold in Wisconsin for a real baby. They had it for five nights before Christmas and Uncle Reind said that Ferdinand was a show off. Marty thought that he had reason to show off. He was the best calf in the world.
When Marty got to thinking about it, he did like Christmas. He liked the stories Uncle Henry and Aunt Myrt told about Baby Jesus. When they first started telling those stories, Marty thought Jesus was a bad word too but it was like God. Depended on how you used it.
He still felt strange about all the stuff he had gotten since he came to Uncle Henry's. Even after he took all that stuff to Aunt Myrt's, he had more toys than he had either the time or the interest to play with. He liked his Atari and he loved his books and the games were fun but Uncle Henry didn't really like table games so Marty could tell that, even though every time Marty asked him, he played, he wasn't really enjoying it. Trucks and cars were fun but Larry thought he was too old to play trucks and it wasn't really fun to play alone.
Anyway, with Ferdinand and Scout and Larry and the woods, Marty would rather be outside. Wintertime was fun. It's cold in Wisconsin but snow is fun to play in when you have warm clothes and he was learning to skate pretty good on the pond in the woods. He didn't even know what they were when he got the skates for Christmas. You fell a lot and it hurt your ankles but it was fun and not so much a problem as you got better. Larry was pretty good and Uncle Reind and Aunt Betje were great. Seemed like everybody in Holland skates on those canals they have there. Uncle Reind and Aunt Betje were teaching both Larry and Marty. Uncle Henry wouldn't try it. He said that at age sixty-seven and as cold as it was, if he fell he'd shatter like a china cup.
Marty's intent was not to be magnanimous. True, he did have a basically kind nature but his early, deprived life had also taught him to be pragmatic. When you had little, you put everything you had to the most efficient use. Many of his birthday toys had not been touched since a few days after his birthday. He liked them but mostly because of the love he felt at his birthday party. It was the people who gave them, not the toys that were significant. Oh, the toys were neat. He just didn't have time to play with them. To Marty, that was wasting them. They had to be put to good use. Julio and Jaime and their sisters had almost no toys. It didn't make sense to Marty for toys to lay around when somebody could be playing with them.
He had to think hard about which ones went where but he separated his toys into two groups: keep and ask Uncle Henry if he could give them to Julio and them.
Marty was snuggled into Henry's lap. Uncle Henry had given permission and had again been very lavish in his praises of Marty's character. Marty had to think about that. Was he being nice or just sensible? Is it nice when you weren't trying to be nice? It was dumb to just let those toys lie around and Uncle Henry was telling him what a nice boy he was. He wasn't trying to be nice. He was just trying not to be dumb. He really loved Uncle Henry but it was harder now. When he lived on Dort Street, all he had to think about was not being there when Mart was sober and where to get food. Now he had to always wonder what really is and if trying not to be dumb was nice. But - it really didn't make any difference at that moment. He was in Uncle Henry's lap and, right now - well, actually any time that was the most important thing in the world.