Christmas As I Knew It Lyrics - Christmas Spirit - Johnny Cash

One day near Christmas when I was just a child 

Mama called us together and mama tried to smile 

She said you know the cottoncrop hasn't been too good this year 

There's just no 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's quite a blessing 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 best of all we had her 

Roy cut down a pigapple 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 cause this Christmas was lean 

But after all there was the babies Tom and Joanne babies need a few things 

I whittled a whistle for my brother Jack and though we fought 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 sharecropped 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 coaloil or beans to boil 

A log apples cranges and such 

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

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

A poor old ragged lady eased open the door 

She picked up the coaloil and hickernuts and said 

I sure do thank ye 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 

Then daddy put on his gumboots waited for the thaw back home in Dyess Arkansas 

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