Chords for Christmas As I Knew It

_ _ _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
One day near Christmas, [D] when I was just a child,
[A] Mama called us together, Mama tried to smile.
She said, you know, the cotton crop hasn't been too good this year.
[E] There's just no spending money, [Am] and well, at least we're all here.
[E] I hope you won't expect a lot of Christmas [Am] presents.
Just be thankful that there's plenty to eat.
[A] That's quite a blessing.
It'll [D] make things a little more blessed.
[E] _ [A] And us kids got to thinking how really blessed we were.
At least we were all healthy, and best of all, [D] we had her.
_ [A] _
[Am] Roy cut down a pick [E] apple tree, [A] and we drug it home, Jack and me.
_ Daddy killed a squirrel, and Louise [A] made the bread.
[Am] Reba decorated the tree with popcorn strings [D] before we went to bed.
_ [A] _
Mama and Daddy sacrificed, because this Christmas was lean,
but after all, there was the [E] babies Tom and Joanne.
[Am] Babies need a few things. _
I whittled a whistle for my brother Jack, and [D] though we fought now and then,
when I gave Jack that [A] whistle, he knew I thought the world of him.
_ _ Mama made the girls' 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 [D] was way past dusk.
And [Em] Mama said,
[A] well, I bet they don't even have coal oil or beans to boil,
let alone apples and [D] oranges and such.
_ [A] _
Me and Jack took a jar [C#] of coal oil and some hickor [A] nuts we had found.
We walked over to the sharecropper's porch and set them down.
[E] A poor [Am] old ragged lady [A] eased open the door.
She picked up the [D] coal oil and hickor nuts and said,
[A] I sure do thank you.
Quickly closed the door.
[E] _ [A] We started [G] back home, me and Jack, and about halfway, [A] we stopped and looked back.
_ _ In the sharecropper's window, at last, was a light.
[D] So for one of the neighbors, [A] for us, it was a good Christmas night.
_ _ Christmas came and Christmas went.
Christmas that year was heaven sent.
_ Then Daddy put on his gum boots, waited for the fall,
back [G#] home in Dias, [A] Arkansas. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Em] _ _ _ [E] _ _ [A] _