How Found Trees, Hitchhiking Soldiers, And Pranks Made Christmas Unforgettable

This is a special (bonus) episode of Stories From Cold Springs. We've been asking our guest to share their favorite Christmas memories. Here are some of our favorites.

A castoff tree becomes a masterpiece. A heaterless Ford carries a homesick soldier down a freezing highway. A prank chair turns a nervous daughter-in-law into family. These are the moments that define Christmas in our world: kindness at midnight, laughter that sticks, and simple gifts that outlast their batteries.

We gather voices from across our first season (and upcoming second season) for a special holiday tapestry.

Dawn Beam remembers a year so lean that her family prayed for a tree that miraculously appeared, and made beautiful with cookies, popcorn, and borrowed lights.

Ted Tibbett relives 1965—stuck with a late radio shift, a chance meeting at a truck stop, and a dirt road rescue capped by two mules and a sunrise reunion.

Kym Garraway-Braley shares the infamous camo seat with the hidden remote, proof that humor can knit a family faster than any perfect present.

Father Tommy brings Irish cadence—Santa on Christmas Eve, church on morning, cards by the fire, and St. Stephen’s Day songs at neighbors’ doors—celebrations built on ritual, service, and shared delight.

Kristen Illarmo talks about finding her way back to wonder through her kids and the sanity-saving tradition of giving books.

Todd McCall maps the logistics of love across grandparents’ tables and a rotating family Christmas that waits for him to get home from college athletics.

Stubbs Lucus honors a father who couldn’t wait to give, handing out presents early so the kids had more time to play.

Host J. Stephen Beam closes with twin battery bulldozers, a crack in the hood, and a lasting lesson: joy doesn’t require perfect things, only present people.

If you crave stories that feel like a warm room on a cold night, this collection is for you. Press play, remember your own best Christmas, and share it with us. Subscribe, leave a review to help others find the show, and tell a friend who could use a little light today.

This episode was sponsored by MCS Homecenter, Bellevue.

Subscribe, share with a friend who loves radio, and leave a review to help more listeners find these stories. Your voice keeps this community strong.

Links to Stephen's incredible novels:

The Death Letter
The Bondage of Innocents

Transcript

Welcome And Holiday Setup

SPEAKER_09 0:15

Hello everyone and welcome to this special edition of Stories from Cold Springs. Thank you so much for joining us today, and thank you for joining us throughout this year by downloading our podcasts. We've had many wonderful guests on our show, and one of the things we've done with them, after they told their stories, of course, is we asked them to record their favorite or the story that's in their mind the most about Christmas. So a personal Christmas story. Could be when they were very young, or we didn't ask for that, but most of them have turned out to be that way. And as the year ends in this glorious season, we want to present you with this, and we hope that all of you are having a wonderful, wonderful Christmas season.

Dawn’s Found Tree And Simple Giving

SPEAKER_09 1:10

To start this series of stories, I've asked the most special person in my life, my wife, Dawn Beam, to share her story with us about her favorite Christmas memory.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Hey Stephen, thanks for having me. You know, as I think about Christmas, every Christmas is special, and through the years there are all kinds of wonderful memories, but probably my favorite was when I was six years old. It was a Christmas that we did not anticipate having anything. We were living in New Orleans. My daddy was in the Baptist Theological Seminary there, and we all knew that money was very, very tight. We were lucky to have enough food to eat in the house. There were six of us. I had two older sisters and a younger brother. I was six at the time, so Chip would have been four, and Gina and Paige would have been seven and eight. And we were all living in a two-bedroom house. The four kids had two bunk beds in one room. You really hardly had room to walk between the bunk beds. In any event, it was a year that we didn't think we were even going to have a Christmas tree. And so we prayed that God would at least give us a Christmas tree. And would you believe, just a few days before Christmas, the most beautiful, perfectly triangled tree showed up outside. And we just knew that God had sent that tree to us. My mom thought it might be that they were throwing it away, but she would not let us bring the tree in until the garbage people came around. And when they were just about to get it, we all four ran out and pulled the tree inside. And I recall making Christmas cookies and hanging them on the tree. A neighbor let us borrow some Christmas lights that were those big bulbs that were all different colors. And we strung popcorn. And in my memory, that was the most beautiful Christmas tree I've ever seen. It was, we thought, a gift from God. And you know, that's really what Christmas is all about. My mother always had a junk drawer. So we've always wanted to give to one another. So we would search her drunk junk drawer and just find things and wrap them to give to one another. You don't have to have a lot to celebrate. Christmas is about Christ coming to us and the joy that that brings to us and also the joy of giving. And so I guess that's my favorite.

SPEAKER_03 3:51

Our next story comes from the amazing Ted Tibbett. His episode will kick off our second season on January 7th, 2026. Ladies and gentlemen, Ted Tibbett.

Ted’s Cold Drive And Soldier Rescue

SPEAKER_07 4:12

From a young man to a senior citizen man. But when I first came to Hattiesburg and work in radio, my first Christmas, it was the Christmas of 1965. And back then and somewhat today, still, the theory of the older owners and managers, the people that you work on holidays are young announcers, because they don't have no family. They consider a husband or wife family, I guess. And so let them work so the others can be with their kids on Christmas. So I drew the task of working six to midnight on Christmas Eve. Very, very cold weather. And I had just bought for a hundred dollars, my mother loaned me the money, a 1954 Ford. This is 1965. It had no heater in it. And one of the windows had a crack in it where cold air came in. So when I drove it, I had a blanket in the front seat. Well, I worked till midnight, feeling very sorry for myself because my family, my mother and daddy, were in Mobile where they lived. I didn't had never lived in Mobile. They moved while I was in college. But I was going to Mobile but knew I couldn't leave till midnight. So at midnight I got in that cold 54 Ford with no heater, hole in the window, wrapped up in a blanket and started driving down 49 toward 98. Well, in the same place that it is today, I don't know if that was the name then, there was Dan's truck stop. And I decided I would go in there and get me some coffee or me or something to try to warm up before I started down that cold 98 Two-Lane Road at the time. And there was a young soldier in there. And again, as you know my life, I've always been sympathetic to veterans. I wasn't in the military yet, but I got drafted about three years later. And uh I got to talking to this young guy, and he was from just north of Loosdale in the country there, and he was trying to get home for Christmas. He'd been hitchhiking from a military base. Had no great rank on him and basically just been in basic training, but had that old uniform on. He was real proud of it. So we got to talking. I said, Look, my car's not warm, but I'm by myself. If you'd like to go down 98, you know, I can drop you off near your home near Lisdale. He said, Oh, boom bleeb. So he got in the car and we wrapped up in a blanket, the two of us. After midnight, it's around one o'clock right now, heading down 98, and it's 32 or below. We're freezing that car in Sheerburn, but we're going home for Christmas. We get down to Loosdale, and he actually lived about a mile up a dirt road off of 98. And he said, just let me out here and I'll walk the distance to my house. I said, No, man, don't do that. He said, Well it's a dirt road and it's kind of rough. I said, I'll take you there. So I turned in and we drove up that dirt road, and it was a rough dirt road, very curvy and hole holes over where came to a little house. It was kind of like a Hallmark movie almost. Had a fireplace going, tin roof on it, wasn't much of a house. But he said, Would you come in and meet my family? I said, I'll be glad to, and I gotta I want to get home too. So I go inside with him. There's a fire roaring in there and it was cold, the house not insulated well at all. But the nicest couple, his mom and daddy, and some little brothers and sisters there, and they're all hugging and they can't thank me enough, and they uh gave me some more coffee and I think a piece of fruitcake. And I said, I really need to go. We didn't have cell phones back then, they didn't have a phone, no way I could call my family. They knew I'd left Dan's diner hours ago. So I got back in my old car and started driving back down that old Kirby dirt road to get back on 98, and the road caved in, it was muddy as something, and I slid in a ditch right there and couldn't get out of it. I said, Oh no, Christmas day now, Eve has passed. So I walked back up to the uh little house, went and knocked on the door, and they said, What's the matter? And I says, I don't know, my car's in a ditch, I can't get it out. Well, they said, Well, let me hitch up the mules, and we'll go down there. So they hitched up two mules, and me and the soldier boy still in his uniform, and his dad went down that car, and my car was hooked up to two mules, and he pulled it out of the ditch, and they said, We're so sorry about that. I said, Don't worry about it, you know. Merry Christmas to you, and they said, Merry Christmas to me. I got my car, made it Christmas day to my parents' house at daylight. Mud all on my car, and my mother and daddy out there worried to death. Where have you been? What happened? And then I told them the story. They said, Well, you did the right thing. He says, Come on in, let's fix some breakfast. So Christmas Eve of 1965, I did a good deed for a young soldier and carried him on to his family. Pulled out of a ditch by two mules and got to spend Christmas Day with my family.

Kim’s Prank Gift Chair

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Our next story is from Kim Garraway Braille, another upcoming 2026 guest on Stories from Cold Springs.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Okay, you asked my favorite Christmas story. Well, here it is. My husband and I had just gotten married, and it was time for his mom and dad to come and spend Christmas with us. And I was very nervous. We got married in the month of November, and Christmas, as you well know, is right around the corner. So it came time for us all to open our presents, and I had this big box and it said Kimmy on it. That's what they call me, Kimmy. And it was for my father-in-law, and I thought, oh my gosh, he got me a present, you know. I just got him a jar of jelly. I didn't know what to do.

SPEAKER_08 10:00

Brand new father.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Brand new father-in-law. I mean, I had to be proper, you know. I married his eldest son, and I'm sitting there, and we're all avid deer hunters. And I know you think, oh my gosh, you know, Kim, you're a rehabber, but you're a deer hunter. We fill our freezers and then we stop. That's the way we roll. We don't kill, we don't kill it unless we eat it. And when our freezers are full, we're done. That's just the way we roll. So he knew that. And I pull out this wonderful cushioned seat, portable camouflage cushioned seat to use in my deer stand. And I said, Oh, Johnny, Mr. Johnny Peepall, thank you so much. You are so sweet. Give me this seat. He said, Well, sit in it. I said, Oh, okay, I'll try it out. So I opened it up. You know how you fold them out. And when I sat in that chair, he had a remote control machine that made noises that we will not discuss on air. And it was loud enough for everybody to hear in the room. And I got blamed for um, you know, and I we still laugh about it to this day because he's a prankster and a jokester. So I quickly jumped out of the seat and went and plopped down back on the couch next to my husband, and he pressed the remote control again with a different sound. And every time I would sit, he would make that sound. I couldn't get away from it. And that probably was one of my funniest Christmas memories right then and there. I'll never forget it as long as I live. And we laugh about it. We we often reminisce almost every year about it. He's still with us, not in great health, but he is still with us. And believe it or not, even though his dementia has kicked in, he still remembers the old toot machine.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

From episode seven, Father Tommy.

Father Tommy’s Irish Traditions

SPEAKER_05 12:02

Well, I'm not sure about a particular Christmas story, but I remember the great tradition of Christmas and our home growing up. Uh having a big family, everybody was home for Christmas, and Santa Claus always came to us on Christmas Eve. But then on Christmas morning there was great excitement because we would get one more present under the Christmas tree. It was clear that was from our parents. And uh then we had the tradition of going to church together as a family, everybody got dressed up at their very best and head to church on Christmas morning. Uh, Christmas Day was like a lot of people with all our new games and fun, and we played lots of board games, etc. And then the big dinner was in the middle of the day turkey, ham, a goose, maybe a duck, uh, from our own farm, and uh then lots of vegetables and good food and desserts. And then Christmas night was always a great night. My uncle was single, Tommy Crow, I'm named after him. He would come to us on Christmas night at our home. He would have some of our food from our earlier dinner, and then we played cards and we chatted and we really enjoyed the time together. Then this is a unique part of Christmas for us as children. On the day after Christmas, it's St. Stephen's Day. St. Stephen was the first martyr. And there was a tradition in Ireland, because Christmas Day was more solemn, that on St. Stephen's Day, children would dress up to bring cheer to the neighbours and friends. So Christmas night we spent decorating our clothes with some simple decorations, we sewed them on or whatever, and we would go in pairs of two, and we'd go from house to house singing Christmas songs and entertaining the people, and then they would come and give us a little donation. And so at the end of the day, we had some money to spend on candy or whatever we wanted to do, and so that was a great Christmas tradition for us, celebrating Christmas itself, Christmas night, and then St. Stephen's Day.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

Ho ho ho, it's Kristen Alarmo. I was never very much of a Christmas person from my late teen and adult twenties. I wasn't much of a Christmas person at all. But when I had my first child, Josephine, she really brought me around to the joys of Christmas. She really brought me around to seeing it through, you know, I was just able to see Christmas through her eyes. And it really it might sound cliche, but it really makes a big difference. And when her brother came along, then it was such a better reason to put on all the pomp and circumstance because they just eat it up. And now there are 15 and 12, and let me tell you, they still just eat it up with a spoon. She will start playing Christmas music any day now. It's in November, and I'm gonna be here for it because it just makes her so happy. So yeah, now I'm a now I'm a fan. One more thing I'll say is I used to be stressed out about what to buy people for Christmas, and that was also one of the reasons why I felt like,

Kristen Rediscovers Joy Through Kids

SPEAKER_04 15:04

oh, Christmas, it's just such a burden, right? But now, over the last, I don't know, three or four years, I've decided I just get everybody books. That's what you're gonna get. You're gonna get a book from me. So I just kind of think about all right, what book might you want? And I can ask them and whatever, but everybody knows they're getting a book from me. It's fine.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

Hold on to those Santa Caps sports fans. It's Todd McCall.

SPEAKER_06 15:34

So my Christmas story, I don't know that I've got one great story. It's kind of a culmination of all of them. So I'm six years older than my sister. I've only got one sibling. Britney and I are six years apart. So going back to when I was really young, Christmas has always been a special time. And I think the good thing about Christmas is I was lucky enough to come from two families, mom and dad's sides of the family, that always made Christmas time just the hugest of family gathering events. It was also something where everybody came together, all children, all grandchildren. If we had distant cousins or distant relatives, we'd bring them in too. And so is a reunion of sorts, but of the best kind. When I was young, Christmas Day always consisted of something happening at home first. Before my sister came along when I'd wake up, you know, Santa Claus had brought all the presents, and you get to sit there and open up presents and take pictures and, you know, do things. And then for lunch that day, we would go and do lunch with one set of grandparents, and then we would turn and go do supper that night with the other set of grandparents and all the family that was involved. Well, my sister came along. She always woke up before I did in the mornings. So, but once again, we would do our family Christmas at home, and then we'd go to one set of grandparents for lunch, and then we'd go to the other set of grandparents for supper. The one thing is my grandfather on my mother's side, he passed away. He was an old World War II vet, and he passed away at 55 when I was two years old. So when we go to her house, it would just be her, but it my mother also had a sister. We would have all of her children there. And then also on several of those Christmases, my grandmother

Todd’s Big Family Gatherings

SPEAKER_06 17:29

on my mother's side, she came from a family of five children. So we would have some or all of those there too. Be around family, man. What's such a fortunate, blessed experience that it could be. Now that both sets of my grandparents have now deceased, uh the cool thing about it is my mother's side, she had one sister and she passed away a few years ago. So it's just my mother now. But on my dad's side, my dad had two sisters. He was kind of caught in the middle, as I always say. We still have the McCall family gathering. On one given year, the whole family comes to my parents' house. The next year they go to one of my dad's sisters' house, everybody does. The next year they go to the other sister's house, and then it just keeps swapping along. So every third year you get to host the McCall family Christmas at home to this day. Even with me working in college athletics, they'll hold off until I get home for that Christmas time. And then if I get a chance to be with the rest of the family at the McCall side, then that's always something special too. It's an important time for a lot of reasons.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

From our most downloaded episodes in season one, Stubbs.

SPEAKER_08 18:43

We wasn't raised real with a lot of money. But Daddy, Daddy was a hard worker, a good man. There was five of us kids. And I don't never remember a Christmas that we didn't get something. The biggest when I was about twelve, that was a 16-gauge single-barrel shotgun. That was the biggest Christmas throw that I ever got or ever will get. That was one heck of a Christmas. And we got a box of 16-gauge shotgun shells and a 16-gauge single barrel, me and my brother both. We walked down to my grandmother's house. They was pretty well off. They had an indoor bathroom and a telephone. So they was they was well off more more well off than we would, I guess would be the way to say that. I don't know. But in her living room. Of course it was a big in the living room. In their house, it was real old time. And in that in that bedroom, slash living room, there was a big old city room. But we always count it. She had this big black skeleton key. Daddy, when he could get the money, he would always buy us a Christmas present. Everyone ever would get to get some for Christmas. And he would walk down there. Oh, if it was if it was two or three days before Christmas. And you missed Danny at night, it

Stubbs’ Early Presents And Gratitude

SPEAKER_08 19:59

would take a little To death because Daddy could not wait. I never to this day he could not wait. It would excite him more than it would excite us to be able to buy something. Now, whether he borrowed the money, I can assure you he didn't steal it. Whether he borrowed it or worked extra or what how he got it, I don't know. But uh he would come up with it and he would he would come walking in. And he would always walk down to my grandmother, and we had a way of going, we had a vehicle. And he'd walk down there and he would come walking in, usually three days before Christmas, two days or something, and he would open the door, he'd with any man open the door and he'd have all five of us young as Christmas present. And he had to give it to us early. And I think I remember him saying, You youngers ain't got but two weeks out for school, and you get out three or four days before Christmas, and you don't get to play with your toys them three or four days, you gotta wait till after Christmas, so you don't get nearly as much time to play with 'em. So Daddy would always give us our Christmas presents every year, three or four days early. And uh usually a red rider BB gun, but as much as uh the 16 gauge single barrel that I can still see today, I had watched that gun on the rack down at the Western Auto in Summerall. Was it closed when you moved here, Doc? The Western Auto in Sumerall, I'd looked at it 60,000 times and said if I could just have that one time. But anyway, I traded it. Yeah, I ain't got it no more. But I traded it for a bicycle or something. But anyway. Good, good times and the best present I ever had, and it was it was traded too. Yeah.

Stephen’s Battery Bulldozers

SPEAKER_09 21:45

I want to thank everyone for sharing their stories with us today. I will share my story to close the loop on uh this episode. I was six or seven, I can't remember exactly, but my father was away working in Waukegan, Illinois at a car plant. Now he always worked. He was a timber cutter by trade and usually was off from before the sun came up till after it went down to drive to places where they had timber that he could cut. But this particular time he had gone with his brother, who had asked him to go with him, to try working in the car plants up in Waukegan. This was in the fall, so Christmas was coming along, and of course my brother who was two years older than me and I always wanted something for Christmas. I mean, every child does, and there were many times we didn't get much. We must have been asking our mother about it, but she kind of let the secret slip that our daddy had bought us a gift, one of each of the same thing, and she described it as being a bulldozer that ran on batteries. In my young imagination I tried to imagine a bulldozer with wheels made of batteries. Lo and behold, you can imagine that was not the case. So he made it home and on Christmas morning we opened those gifts. We knew what they were, but it didn't matter, just the idea of having something to open. And there they were. Looked exactly the same, bulldozers, and they weren't small ones. They were probably a foot long, had a little blade on the front and a little chain on the back that you could drag things with, and they indeed ran on batteries, that just meant that that powered them. They had little rubber tracks on them, and they had the ability to change direction is if they hit a solid object. We were amazed, and that amazed us, amazed me, and we played with them incessantly. Early on, though, we were playing with them on our kitchen table. Our old house had concrete floors. We would let them run down toward one end of the table and we'd go stop it, and it would go down to the other end and stop it and go back and forth that way.

Season Wrap And Sponsor Thanks

SPEAKER_09 24:06

Well, my brother was very meticulous with his. I not so much, I guess, somehow I got distracted and didn't stop it. During one of those turns going down the table and it fell off the table on that concrete floor. It had a plastic hood on it, and you could see this little painted engine inside, and when it fell that plastic hood broke. Well I was heartbroken, but I soon got over it. And we played with those things probably a year or more, long after batteries would even work in them. You could still push a little dirt with them. Eventually, as time passed, I got tired of playing with it, I guess, and I eventually took it apart to see what made it work. Not that I learned anything from that, but I do recall taking it apart. We rarely got gifts at Christmas, so that stands out in my memory as my favorite Christmas memory. So folks, again, I want to thank everyone who shared their personal stories with us. I want to wish you all a happy and blessed Christmas season this year, and I invite you back next year to again hear our guests tell their stories and use their creativity on our podcast, Stories from Cold Springs.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

Well, that's a wrap of season one, Stories from Cold Springs. We'll be back on January 7th to kick off season two with Ted Tibbett. We also want to be sure and thank our incredible sponsor, MCS Home Center Bellevue. It's more than just a building supply store. They've got everything you need to make your home feel warm and welcoming. For the holidays or any season, why don't you come on by at 7329-US98 Hadesburg? All of us here at Stories from Cold Springs wish you the most merry and joyful Christmas and an incredible new year full of hope, love, and of course, stories.