A Christmas Memory

Buddy’s friend is never named in the story; Buddy refers to her simply as “my friend” or “my best friend.” Alongside Buddy, she is the only other major character, and the story can be interpreted as a loving portrait of this childhood friend. Buddy first introduces her as a “sixty-something” year old woman with “shorn white hair” dressed in shabby clothing (3). However, her face is “remarkable—not unlike Lincoln’s, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid” (4). As this description suggests, Buddy’s friend is shy and unassuming, but beneath this humble exterior lies a “heroic” energy and determination. She manages to create a magical Christmas holiday for Buddy—baking 31 fruitcakes, felling and decorating an enormous tree, and making homemade presents—with almost no money or support from her other family members.

Buddy admires his friend’s strength and especially her knowledge of the natural world, and he proudly informs the reader:

Here are a few things she has done, does do: killed with a hoe the biggest rattlesnake ever seen in this country (sixteen rattles), dip snuff (secretly), tame hummingbirds (just try it) till they balance on her finger […] grow the prettiest japonicas in town, know the recipe for every sort of old-time Indian cure, including a magical wart-remover (10).

In addition to these feats, Buddy’s friend is remarkably kind, nurturing, and generous; she is the only relative to befriend Buddy and care for him, and she is Buddy’s only source of love and affection as a child. Although she has lived her entire life in a small rural town—having never “traveled more than five miles from home, received or sent a telegram, read anything except the funny papers and the Bible” (9)—Buddy’s friend possesses admirable kindness and wisdom; the climax of the story occurs when Buddy’s friend experiences an epiphany that allows her to perceive a divine presence in her everyday life.

Buddy’s view of his friend contrasts sharply with how their other family members view her. Buddy positively describes his friend as “still a child” (4); for Buddy, his friend’s childlike enthusiasm for Christmas is “fun,” yet the other family members view her behavior as “loony” and shameful. Buddy’s friend is hurt by this cruelty, but, like Buddy, she finds comfort and communion in their friendship. After Buddy leaves for military school, her health rapidly declines, suggesting that Buddy’s companionship is part of what kept her alive.

Buddy’s relatives—the members of his extended family who reside in the house—go by several titles: “Other people” (4), “persons in the house” (7), “others in the house” (10), “the household” (25), and “Those who Know Best” (27). Although they play an important role in the outcome of the story, they are not characters in the traditional sense; they possess no names and are not described in any detail. For the most part, Buddy and his friend are simply neglected by their relatives: “[T]hough they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them” (4).

However, when Buddy’s relatives do emerge, they function as a “wrathful” chorus, dispensing chastisements and disappointing Christmas presents. For Buddy, his relatives are representatives of social propriety and disapproval, as well as an unopposable force separating him from his friend; it is “Those who Know Best” who send Buddy away to military school. In the one instance of dialogue that these static characters have—a scolding delivered when they discover Buddy and his friend drinking whiskey in the kitchen—the relatives’ concerns clearly center on the family’s reputation: “shame! scandal! humiliation!” (17).

Buddy’s other relatives hold the financial and executive power within the household, and they disregard both his and his friend’s wishes. His relatives thus drive the plot forward; without money or assistance from their relatives, Buddy and his friend must go to great lengths to acquire the ingredients for their fruitcakes and a Christmas tree. These relatives are also foils to Buddy’s friend; they are portrayed in the collective—de-individualized and anonymized, remote and disapproving—which is the antithesis of the complex and finely detailed portrayal of Buddy’s sympathetic friend.

Described by Buddy as “an Indian” and “a giant with razor scars across his cheeks” (12), Haha is the owner of the town’s “sinful (to quote public opinion) fish-fry and dancing café down by the river” (11). Haha’s name is an ironic nickname, bestowed for his reputation as “a man who never laughs” (12). When Buddy and his friend approach Haha to purchase whiskey, Buddy is initially terrified of the man—yet when Haha sees that Buddy and his friend are purchasing the whiskey with a hard-earned collection of “nickels and dimes and pennies,” he reveals his kindness and generosity: “[J]angling the coins in his hand like a fistful of dice, his face softens. ‘Tell you what,’ he proposes, pouring the money back into our bead purse, ‘just send me one of them fruitcakes instead’” (13). Haha joins the community of “friends” that Buddy and his friend create through their gifts of fruitcake.

Haha is a foil to Buddy’s relatives; he is generous and sympathetic, while they are stingy and unkind. At the same time, Haha represents a stigmatized element of their small town; associated with the pleasures of liquor, gambling, and dancing, Haha is deemed “sinful” by “public opinion.” Like Buddy and his friend, Haha is a social outsider; in Haha’s case, this outsider status likely is based not only in others’ prejudice against his profession but also in their racism. Much of Buddy’s initial fear of Haha appears motivated by his appearance, but after his act of kindness, Buddy’s friend concludes that Haha is “a lovely man” (14).