"There is no history, there are only historians" — Peter Greenway

When I was 8 years old, I had the most magical and spectacular Christmas morning a little boy could ever hope for.

Years later, I would discover that for my older brother, who was 10 at the time, it was the exact opposite: a bittersweet experience that still saddens him whenever the memories come lurking back.

I have been always fascinated by how two people can share what seems to be the identical experience yet tell a completely different history of the event, but I digress. Back to my Christmas tale.

The Christmas before that year had been a tough one for our family. My father had a minor heart attack and the company he worked for fired him the following week.

He was out of work for six months while he looked for another sales job. That Christmas my mother made presents by hand and my stocking contained walnuts and two oranges. Knowing of our situation, I put my dreams of a new baseball glove, BB gun, and a Tonka dump truck on hold, although I wondered why Santa hadn’t been a little more responsive to my time of need.

That spring, my father found a great job as a sales representative for a new company. (They did, however, only hire him under the understanding that he would have no health insurance for his first two years of service.)

With Christmas approaching, I dreamed big about what the Jolly Old Man might have in store for me. My Dad, I realize now, had also been keenly aware of his two sons’ constant staring at the Sears toy catalog and decided to do something really special for us.

That summer, on a visit to my grandparent’s house, my cousin made a ping-pong table for us out of a piece of plywood and with a net of small paint cans. Despite its humble appearance, my brother, cousin, and I spent many happy hours at the “table” playing the game. My father was a natural athlete who had been the ping-pong champ at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., during the war.

For Christmas, he bought his two boys a real ping-pong table.

At the crack of dawn on Christmas morning, staying true to family tradition, my brother and I raced down the stairs to the living room to see what Santa had brought us. But my Dad had discovered a real problem that night before Christmas: How could he unload and set up the heavy table without some help?

You must remember also, dear reader, that back in that time, they used real wood, not the ultra-lite composites in today’s ping pong tables. To put it simply, it weighed a ton.

That late evening, after my brother and I carefully placed cookies and milk for Santa, we went to sleep with the prospect of the coming morning dancing in our heads. My Mom then tried to help carry the table from the basement where the delivery men had placed it the day before, but it was just too heavy.

This left my Dad with a real Hobson’s choice: He needed help from one of his boys.

Gently waking my brother, my dad led him downstairs and matter-of-factly broke the news to him and explained he needed help to carry the table up the stairs so his little brother’s Christmas wouldn’t be spoiled.

Little did I know that next morning as I yelled and screamed excitedly about our “surprise” gift from Santa that all the while my older brother was a jumble of mixed emotions.

Years later, he would tell me how sad he felt about “being left out” of the special moment when he and I had traditionally burst into the living room to see what gifts had been left for us.

He hated that Christmas.

The writer La Rochefoucauld said people always complain about their memories, never about their minds. Looking back, I see now that my most magical Christmas was off by one year. It was a year my parents with no money still made Christmas magical for a wide-eyed 7-year-old.

Did I mention just how sweet a fresh orange tastes first thing in the morning?

Merry Christmas, Bentonville!

SEY YOUNG IS A LOCAL BUSINESSMAN, HUSBAND, FATHER AND LONGTIME RESIDENT OF BENTONVILLE.