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I remember when I was little, my parents went through some tough financial times.

One year, I think I was 6, it occurred to me that it was only a few days before Christmas, and we still didn’t have our tree up. It was an artificial tree, and I knew where all the pieces and the ornaments were, but for some reason I couldn’t convince anyone that we should get it out.

So, tiny skinny little me wrestled with a plastic-and-wire tree that was bigger than I was. It scratched up my arms something fierce, but I put it up and decorated it myself.

On Christmas Eve we went to a special church service. I don’t remember the service itself, although I was probably in the pageant. What I do remember is when we went out to our car, somebody had left a bag full of groceries in the back seat!

I didn’t understand at the time just how tight finances had been. But I remember turkey dinners on Christmas day :)

The perfect Christmas gift. Filled w/ imported chocolates. The elegant
monochromatic look turns a plain cardboard box into a special gift.

CHOCOLATE BOX

Line the base of a cardboard box with clear cellophane
and crumpled gold tissue paper to elevate the contents.

The pictured box is filled w/: A chocolate brown teddy bear.
A block of chocolate truffle. Ribbon-tied cello bags w/ peanut clusters.
A slab of chocolate covered peanuts. Bars of milk and white chocolate.
A triple chocolate chip cookie. Foil-wrapped chocolate assortment.

Tie w/ wide chocolate brown ribbon.

That’s a wonderful story.

There were years when things were pretty lean for us, too, when I was small; but that’s actually one of the things that makes Christmas so special in my memories.

When I look back now, realizing things that I didn’t at the time, I’m amazed at how my father and grandmother managed every year to make Christmas so wonderful and memorable, regardless of the finances. Maybe we got one, great, gift: but it was one very carefully chosen, and put on ‘layaway’ many weeks before.

I think what made it all magical for me, were the lights and decorations and tree - largely my Granny’s work.

(One of my greatest memories is the year my brother and I both got bicycles from Santa - we were small, so the bikes had training-wheels, and little mechanical bells on them. That year, we were allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve, and sit on our bikes, ringing the bells at midnight, while watching Guy Lombardo :-)

Those bikes must have broke them for weeks...

-JT