Christmas is almost here and even our favorite country artists are gearing up to celebrate. Charles Esten, who is set to release his debut album in 2024, recently stopped by American Songwriter and shared the story behind his all-time favorite Christmas gift.
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Esten, ever the deep thinker, took a seemingly simple gift and turned it into so much more. He recalled a moment from childhood when he received a Flexible Flyer for Christmas.
“We were lower, lower middle class, but I moved into an area that was upper-upper middle class and so you felt that distance,” he tells American Songwriter. “I didn’t have a sled at the time and I didn’t have boots like everybody else. I just had tennis shoes and garbage bags to go down the hill with.
“One Christmas I woke up and not only did I have a pair of boots under the tree but I had a Flexible Flyer,” he continues. “Not only that, but it was snowing [that year]. I remember going to the hill that we all went to and at the top were some teenagers by an oil drum standing by the fire.
“Only a few rides down, a friend borrowed it,” he adds. “It went out into the street and a metro bus hit it and put it into shards of wood.”
Instead of letting an unfortunate situation get the better of him, he tried to “take this lemon and make it lemonade.”
“I was a young guy–fifth grade or something–and I said, ‘Don’t cry in front of everybody,'” he says. “So I carried this sled to the top of the hill and gave the wood to the teenagers so they could stand by the fire. So I had taken this really sad moment and turned it into something pretty special, standing next to a beautiful girl about three years older than me.
“We were standing there talking and everything’s good again until she says, ‘What’s that smell?’ and somebody goes, ‘Dude, your boots,'” he continues. “I looked down and my boots had melted to the side of the oil drum. They stuck like taffy and then broke off like long elf boots with a little curl at the end.
“Everybody was dying laughing,” he adds. “I made it home in my elf boots without a sled. Those were definitely my favorite Christmas presents.”
(Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images)
