By Jessica Easthope
Growing up, Laura Arcuri always had happy Christmases, even if the feeling only lasted for a few hours.
It’s 1966, 13-year-old Arcuri’s first Christmas without her dad, and her mom is dying of cancer.
“I remember her trying to make a beautiful Christmas for us,” Arcuri said. “We had a tree, there were presents to open, she was still working. I don’t know how she did it, but she struggled to work. It was her and my brother and we had gifts to open and we made the best of it.”
Arcuri’s dad, Nicholas, grew up during the Depression and went on to serve in World War II. He died of an infection he contracted in a swimming pool at the age of 48.
“He had his life ahead of him,” Arcuri said. “He knew what Christmas could be like when times are very lean; the world lost him too early. I lost him too early.”
By Christmas 1968 Arcuri and her brother were orphans. They moved out of their home on Long Island to Bushwick with relatives. The painful memories have stayed with her all these years, but so have the good.
“It just becomes a harder time to celebrate but somehow also you remember those Christmases and you get some strength and comfort from knowing that you had a beautiful Christmas,” Arcuri said.
Every year when Arcuri, who attends daily Mass at St. Matthias Church in Ridgewood, donates to Bright Christmas, deep down she hopes her money goes to someone just like her.
“The Tablet always succeeds, having grown up in this diocese now you could see that there’s a lot of need and you know a lot of people that are hungry or children that are struggling, children whose childhood might even be cut short.”
Her own childhood was cut short, but come the Christmas holiday Arcuri remembers the gifts and decorations that allowed her to forget her heartbreak.
“Christmas is a time to help others,” Arcuri said. “It could be a boy, it could be a girl, it could be for the adults that needed it could even be for their pet, to make it a Bright Christmas, to make it a Christmas that some family is going to remember for a very long time.”
Arcuri knows those are the Christmas memories that last. Arcuri and dozens of other donors are already helping kids have a Bright Christmas this year.
So far the paper has raised more than $57,000, but they’re trying to raise $125,000.
So if you want to help them reach their goal, just go online to thetablet.org/brightchristmas.
You can also make a check out to: Bright Christmas and mail it to
Bright Christmas, LB #2118,
P.O. BOX 95000
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19195.
Your generous gift to Bright Christmas will help dozens of parishes around the diocese.