2006年NPR美国国家公共电台十二月-The Christmas Tree Under the Porch

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Now that DVD we discussed about the filmmaker when his father involved the same technique that we will hear in this next part of the program, we have been listening to StoryCorps as across the country loved ones talk with each other. Sometimes people tell the most important stories to the ones who know them best.

Marie DeSantis recently talked with her grandson about Christmas in 1944. It was during World War II. DeSantis was 18 living with her family in Staten Island, New York, and she recalls¹ how their holiday changed with news from the war in Europe.

My brother Joe was at the service, of course, he was fighting in Germany. A telegram² came saying that he was missing³ in action, and so I was afraid to tell my parents and I ran to get my three sisters who were at church, and I said "You have to come home, mom and papa need you". We were so upset, my sister, instead of getting into car, she ran home, ran all the way home alongside⁴ the car. It was the worst news you could get, it was getting closer to Christmas and my mother says we won't be able to have a Christmas tree this year because Joey is not here, we don't know if he's alive, we don't know anything, so we're gonna not have a Christmas tree, and then Christmas eve, a letter came from Joey: I'm in a hospital, I'm alright, I will come home soon, and by now you must be putting up the Christmas tree and my mother says oh look, what happened, he's telling us to decorate the tree, and my brother John, he says: "Mom, guess what? Last night when I came home from work, I got a Christmas tree and I put it under the porch⁵ because I thought maybe you would change your mind and we could have the Christmas tree, so we put it up and we decorated it. "This one is for you, Joe!" and it turned out nice.

That's Marie DeSantis in New York City, and we can tell you that Joey V did eventually come home.

StoryCorps interviews are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress⁶, and you can listen to more of them at npr.org.

I want you for Christmas. Anything that Santa would bring could never compare with you.

Major funding for StoryCorps comes from the Corporation⁷ for Public Broadcasting.

I just wrote a letter….