Posted on 12/21/2011 7:08:15 AM PST by Graybeard58
This is the time of year when people gather to celebrate the Christmas holiday with family and friends. (Ever notice the expression "family and friends" kind of implies that family members are not friends.
That's an unfortunate implication. I know many people who consider all their family members to be very close friends-as long as they don't count the ones they no longer speak to.)
A fun activity when family and friends (and friendly family members) gather is a game called "Best Christmas Gift Ever." The rules are simple: you take turns describing the most favorite and memorable Christmas gift you ever received. When describing the gift, be as truthful as possible regarding the basic details, such as the gift itself, who gave it, and how old you were at the time. But with all the other aspects of the gift, such as how you reacted, how jealous your siblings were, and how the gift transformed your life-feel free to embellish the story. Because if you won't, surely your friends and family (and friendly family members to whom you may not be speaking later, depending upon their level of sarcasm) will offer their embellished recollections.
My own was that blue bicycle I got at Christmas 1955, yes, I'm old. I was 10 years old then and it was absolutely unexpected.
Wow. Who would really say my family the best gift ever, have they met my family?
Christmas 1958, Santa came to the house on Dec 23, (because we were so special he wanted to talk to us), and I got a giant puffy slip. The kind girls got to make their dresses stick out the fuller the bigger.
(OK, when my first grandchild was born on Dec 25....that actually was better than the slip.)
1990, We found out a couple of days before Christmas my mother’s cancer had not spread. She got home on Christmas Eve.
Tiger Joe, what a tank. It fired a shell that, yes, could shoot your eye out.
I got a moped completely unexpectedly when I was 14. I was on top of the world until my Dad told me it was to get back and forth to the new job I was to begin after the new year. In retrospect the later part of that was the greatest gift I’ve ever received.
40 acres of my great grandfather’s homestead.
I was eight. All I wanted was a Dancerina doll. My mom said no way, too much money.
On Christmas morning, I opened all my presents. Then my dad said that I should go get another box upstairs. I could hardly carry it.
It was the doll.
I told my hubby the story and said, “Remember that one present that you got.....”
He said he never got one. Just fisher price toys and hot wheel cars. He never got the biggie. He never got that “one present” that he was dying for. Understanding that my in-laws are worth a cool mil, I just wanted to smack his mother.
Now we make sure that Dad gets one great present every year. Even if the girls and I eat Ramen for a month. Daddy needs one good present. And the look on his face is the best present of all,
Well, me and my highschool sweetheart had “relations” for the first time on Christmas Eve 1990, does that count?
Bikes are popular, I guess......
I was 12 and wanted a 10-speed bike for Christmas in the worst way. Christmas morning came, gifts were opened, but no bike. I just figured, “Oh well, no bike, I’ll start saving up or something.” My Dad had gotten my mother a rather large cabinet that Christmas so he said, “Hey, give me a hand downstairs. The box that cabinet came in is huge and I want to get it out of the house. It’s in the downstairs closet.” Suckered me in totally. I went downstairs, opened the closet door, and there sat the bike.
After 30+ years I have still never forgotten that.
>>We found out a couple of days before Christmas my mother’s cancer had not spread. She got home on Christmas Eve.<<
What happened after Christmas?
My family are not my friends they are my family....I don’t want my children to be my friends.
Best Christmas gift??? Hmmm I think the year I spent house sitting for a friend...time alone with a bathtub to myself
1993: My father surviving cancer.
1994: A marble chess set from my husband.
2001: That my daughter, born two months premature, was able to come home before Christmas.
2010: A Dewalt table saw.
2011: A full-length racoon coat.
Honestly, though, out of this list, the three best are ones you would consider "smarmy."
Jesus is the only gift that I REALLY need, the rest is just “stuff”..really, it’s nice to have but really doesn’t matter. For your question about stuff probably either my Daisy BB gun as a kid or my original NES/SMB/Duck Hunt Nintendo Entertainment System!
J.S.
In 2004 my Dad was called into Heaven(and was released from Parkinsons) on Dec 24th. I was a sad but happy day.
A Remington Model 700 BDL in .264 Winchester Magnum. I was fourteen.
“In 2004 my Dad was called into Heaven(and was released from Parkinsons) on Dec 24th. I was a sad but happy day.”
####
I know exactly how you feel.
My Dad, who’s health and quality of life, were rapidly deteriorating was called Home, just last night.
The Good Lord made it very easy for all of us. A deeply elegiac, but ultimately wonderful Christmas gift. Thanks be to God.
The plan was that I would put the trumpet to good use putting myself through college on a music scholarship. I didn't follow through on getting the scholarship to any of the schools I was interested in, although I did start school at a "commuter" school about 30 miles from the place where we lived, and I did play in the band. For about a year.
When I started a full time job in September of the next year and attempted to go to school at the same time, my trumpet at first got less time with me, and then just ended up being kinda neglected. That's the nice way to say it, I suppose.
Dad still made the payments on it though, and I have it with me in the house today as I post this.
What happens next I don't know.
The pocket transistor radio I got when I was 12 or 13 - after my mom said such a thing was too expensive. Spent many summer evenings after that listening to Vin Scully broadcast the Dodger games on that little radio. Thanks, Mom!!
“1990, We found out a couple of days before Christmas my mother’s cancer had not spread. She got home on Christmas Eve.”
Ditto. 1990 my sister came home from the bone marrow treatment at Duke University in time to spend Christmas. with all of us and her two small children. It was the happiest Christmas of my life. We all thought she was going to recover. I think of it every year.
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