The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck Read Free Book Online Page B

knew that we didn’t have much money, but until that moment I never realized how
     heavily that weighed on my mother. In my mind I saw my mom walking by the new bikes
     in Sears every day at work, knowing which one Iwanted and knowing she couldn’t afford it. I saw her looking at the sweaters I didn’t
     want, and she couldn’t afford, picking out yarn and knitting every night while trying
     to convince herself that somehow I would understand and love that sweater just as
     much as a new bike. Knowing in her heart I never could.
    I sat there awkwardly, watching in silence as Mom picked up the sweater as gently
     as if it had been an injured kitten. She slowly folded it and neatly placed it on
     top of my dresser. She lingered there for a moment, her hands pressing the sweater
     down as if to flatten out wrinkles that didn’t exist.
    I really didn’t know how much my mother believed in the magic of Christmas until I
     saw it die for her in a rumpled ball on my bedroom floor.
    Mom gently pulled my bedroom door closed without another word. My eyes began to burn
     again. I went back to the window, hoping the snow would cheer me up. I pressed my
     head up against the cold glass again. The girl across the street was gone, and so
     was the snow. One final flurrydanced slowly toward the ground. It looked as sad and alone as I felt.
    Then it started to rain.
     
    When Dad first started to get sick, Mom, along with some of our close family friends,
     tried to keep City Bakery going. They did the best they could, but it quickly became
     obvious just how good a baker Dad really was. A recipe might seem like a simple list
     of ingredients and instructions, but there was obviously a lot more that went into
     his creations than just what was handwritten on a bunch of old grease-stained pages.
    When Dad passed away, Mom quickly sold the business. I guess it was probably inevitable
     anyway. Our downtown, like my father, had been slowly dying for years. I don’t know
     how much money she got, but I do know that it couldn’t have been much, because even
     after she got the check I still wasn’t allowed to order milk when we went out to eat.
     I think she used most of it to pay off Dad’s medical bills.
    I never thought I’d miss the bakery, but the truth was that I did. I missed it a lot.
     I didn’t miss cleaning the pans or sweeping the floor, but I missed being together.
     Even though we’d all been working, we’d all been working together. Somehow that had escaped me until it was gone.
    For a long time, Mom avoided driving by the bakery after she sold it, but someone
     told me it had been turned into a shoe store. I took their word for it; it was too
     hard to picture someone trying on a pair of high heels in the same place my father
     used to crack eggs or knead dough.
    Right around the time Mom sold the bakery, she also sold our car and house. I guess
     she was trying to make a clean break. The Impala got traded in for our Pinto wagon,
     and our house was downsized to a white one so small that our one-car garage basically
     doubled the size of the whole interior.
    I didn’t like all of the new stuff, but at least the Pinto didn’t have the smell of
     Dad’s Old Spice cologne trapped in the fabric of its headrests, and the new house
     didn’t constantly smell like Dad’s German chocolate cake.
    Thinking about all the changes that had happened soquickly in my life only added to my misery. If Dad had still been alive and still
     had the bakery, then he would’ve had enough money to buy my bike. It just wasn’t fair.
     Why was I being punished?
    After about an hour of watching the rain I went back downstairs. Mom was in the kitchen.
     “Is there anything left for lunch?” I asked, hoping that we could pretend the sweater
     incident had never happened.
    “We don’t have time now. We’re going to head over to Grandma and Grandpa’s house a
     little early. Go put on your sweater—your grandmother helped me pick out