Their Scrappy Christmas

It looked like they wouldn't have much of a holiday that year

- By MARCI SEITHER, Knoxville, Tennessee

Have a holly jolly Christmas, it's the best time of the year....” The Burl Ives tune was playing on our stereo, but it felt more like the worst time of the year. I sat at our dining room table, surrounded by fabric scraps and sewing supplies. Christmas was less than a month away, and my husband, John, and I barely had enough money for groceries, let alone gifts for our four children. I thought I could make them something—but what? Lord, I prayed, I know Christmas isn't all about presents. I just want to make it special for the kids.

I never imagined John and I would be in this position. We were living in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, then. Earlier in the year, John had started a concrete pumping business, and it was going great...until the Red River flooded. “The flood of the century,” people called it. The waters had spread for miles inland. Even though we were blessed to be physically okay, we were drowning financially. Construction projects stopped. So did our income.