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The best Christmas gift ever (What was yours?)
Waterbury Republican-American ^ | December 21, 2011 | Bill Dunn

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.


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Try to avoid smarmy answers like, "My family is the best gift ever", Nobody cares.

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.

1 posted on 12/21/2011 7:08:16 AM PST by Graybeard58
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To: Graybeard58

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.)


2 posted on 12/21/2011 7:14:39 AM PST by svcw (God's Grace - thank you!)
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To: Graybeard58
Mine was also a bike; Christmas 1962, a Rollfast 26” that belonged to an older neighbor that he kept in mint condition and was decked out with all the accessories popular during that time. My Dad new I had my eye on it and the kid was looking for cash to buy his first car.
3 posted on 12/21/2011 7:15:49 AM PST by Wilum (Never loaded a nuke I didn't like)
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To: Graybeard58

1990, We found out a couple of days before Christmas my mother’s cancer had not spread. She got home on Christmas Eve.


4 posted on 12/21/2011 7:16:57 AM PST by wordsofearnest (Proper aim of giving is to put the recipient in a state where he no longer needs it. C.S. Lewis)
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To: wordsofearnest

Tiger Joe, what a tank. It fired a shell that, yes, could shoot your eye out.


5 posted on 12/21/2011 7:18:25 AM PST by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: Graybeard58

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.


6 posted on 12/21/2011 7:19:00 AM PST by numberonepal (First they came for Sarah, then they came for Herman.....)
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To: Graybeard58

40 acres of my great grandfather’s homestead.


7 posted on 12/21/2011 7:20:35 AM PST by Dixie Yooper (Ephesians 6:11)
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To: Graybeard58

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,


8 posted on 12/21/2011 7:20:42 AM PST by netmilsmom (Happiness is a choice)
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To: Graybeard58

Well, me and my highschool sweetheart had “relations” for the first time on Christmas Eve 1990, does that count?


9 posted on 12/21/2011 7:21:31 AM PST by apillar
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To: Graybeard58

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.


10 posted on 12/21/2011 7:23:24 AM PST by day10 (Integrity has no need of rules.)
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To: wordsofearnest

>>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?


11 posted on 12/21/2011 7:24:26 AM PST by netmilsmom (Happiness is a choice)
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To: Graybeard58

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


12 posted on 12/21/2011 7:24:32 AM PST by Nifster
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To: Graybeard58
1992: My eye-popping engagement ring and the gift of my husband's heart.

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."

13 posted on 12/21/2011 7:27:27 AM PST by TheWriterTX (All in now for Newt Gingrich)
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To: Graybeard58

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.


14 posted on 12/21/2011 7:29:43 AM PST by JSDude1 (December 18, 2010 the Day the radical homosexual left declared WAR on the US Military.)
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To: Graybeard58

In 2004 my Dad was called into Heaven(and was released from Parkinsons) on Dec 24th. I was a sad but happy day.


15 posted on 12/21/2011 7:31:35 AM PST by US Navy Vet (Go Packers! Go Rockies! Go Boston Bruins! See, I'm "Diverse"!)
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To: Graybeard58

A Remington Model 700 BDL in .264 Winchester Magnum. I was fourteen.


16 posted on 12/21/2011 7:33:42 AM PST by 2nd Bn, 11th Mar (The "p" in Democrat stands for patriotism.)
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To: US Navy Vet

“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.


17 posted on 12/21/2011 7:36:24 AM PST by EyeGuy (moral)
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To: Graybeard58
When I was a junior in high school, doesn't matter when, I got up on Christmas morning and there in the living room sat a new, silver professional grade Getzen trumpet. Dad had bought it on his beer and peanuts salary, making the payments that could have bought himself a decent used pickup. Up to that time I had been playing a hand-me down piece that had seen its better days. When school started back in January the first thing that happened was me moving to first chair, beating a guy who was a senior who had always been... a rival.

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.

18 posted on 12/21/2011 7:37:20 AM PST by OKSooner (Today's new tagline. Tomorrow's new tagline pending.)
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To: Graybeard58

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!!


19 posted on 12/21/2011 7:38:21 AM PST by Donkey Odious (I can explain it to you. I can't understand it for you.)
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To: wordsofearnest

“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.


20 posted on 12/21/2011 7:41:45 AM PST by Georgia Girl 2 (The only purpose of a pistol is to fight your way back to the rifle you should never have dropped.)
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