Christmas As I Knew It lyrics

One day near Christmas when I was just a child

Mama called us together and mama tried to smile

She said you know the cotton crop hadn't been too good this year

There's not a lot of spending money and well at least we're all here

I hope you won't expect a lot of Christmas presents

Just be thankful that there is plenty to eat

That'll make things a little more pleasant

And us kids got to thinking how really blessed we were

At least we were all healthy and most of all we had her

Roy cut down a pine oak tree and we drug it home Jack and me

Daddy killed a squirrel and Louise made the bread

Reba decorated the tree with popcorn strings before we went to bed

Mama and daddy sacrificed because this Christmas was kind of lean

After all there was the babies Tom and Joanne

And babies need a few things

I whittled a whistle for my brother Jack

And though we disagreed now and then

When I gave Jack that whistle he knew I thought the world of him

Mama made the girl's dresses out of flower sacks

And when she ironed them down

You couldn't tell that they hadn't come from town

A sharecropper family across the road didn't have it as good as us

They didn't even have a light and it was way past dusk

And mama said, Well I bet they don't even have coal oil

Let alone apples and oranges and such

Me and Jack took a jar of coal oil nd some hickernuts we'd found

We walked to the sharecropper's porch and set them down

A poor old ragged lady eased open the door

She picked up the coal oil and hickernuts and said

"I sure do thank you" and quickly closed the door

We started back home me and Jack

And about halfway we stopped looked back

And in the sharecropper's window at last was a light

So for one of the neighbors and for us it was a good Christmas night

Christmas came and Christmas went

Christmas that year was heaven sent

And my daddy put on his rubber boots

And paced the floor waiting for the thaw

Back home in Dyess Arkansas

• Artist:Johnny Cash
• Album:The Christmas Spirit (1963)