Your two front teeth?
See my two front teeth?
Gee, all you want for Christmas is your two front teeth...
......then I could wish you "Merry Christmas."
Posted on 12/15/2006 10:55:07 AM PST by Cavalcabo
I feel bad for most kids these days. Every Christmas, they get way too much stuff when memories are all they want.
I'm 44 and barely remember most of the gifts I got for Christmas as a kid. I do remember the extraordinary blessings I was given.
I remember an unusually warm December when I was 6. Dozens of kids were out in the street playing, while their dads hung Christmas lights. I was looking out the window when my father, the Big Guy, pulled into the driveway, a tree strapped to the roof of our 1970 Plymouth Fury.
He opened the garage door and walked inside. He came out carrying a large Christmas tree platform he'd kept strapped to the garage wall. The Big Guy liked his platforms sturdy, and he built ours from a sheet of 4-foot-by-8-foot plywood and 2-inch-by-6-inch studs. It was heavy as lead, but he made it look light as a feather.
The Big Guy was only 34 then, his hair black as coal. He was youthful and powerful and madly in love with my mother. They had four children with two more yet to come. And as he toiled to get the tree straight on the platform, he had no idea his work would elicit powerful memories in his son 40 years later.
For years, our Christmas Eve ritual was the same. Our next-door neighbors, the Kriegers, visited. Tremendous festivity filled the air. The party lasted two or three hours before we were carted off to bed.
The Big Guy would stack the old stereo console in the dining room with every Christmas record we had – Mitch Miller, A Chipmunk Christmas, Snoopy and the Red Barron and Bing Crosby. Sleeping was near impossible until Crosby came on. Not even the most hyper kid could stay awake when the needle danced over that melodious tune.
And suddenly it was morning. I'd jump out of my bed and run around waking my sisters. We'd rush down to the living room. As we opened our gifts, our dog Jingles dived into the piles of wrapping paper.
And when we were done swapping gifts with each other, we gave our gifts to Jingles – six hunks of rawhide. Her tail went wild with excitement, and she'd spend the rest of the day chewing it in total contentment.
The Big Guy always made a massive breakfast on Christmas morning – eggs, bacon, ham, pancakes, French toast and English muffins smattered with jelly. We'd sit around laughing and talking an hour or more.
Until the Big Guy began getting antsy.
"You kids have to get ready for Mass or we'll end up standing in the aisles like we did last year," he'd say.
All the stragglers went to church on Christmas, you see – even the atheists must have – because we regulars had to get there extra early to claim our usual seats. But when you have five sisters, each sporting the "Farrah Fawcett" big hair of the era, and ONE full bathroom, it took us HOURS to get ready.
Their big hair prompted the Big Guy's second major Christmas morning concern: "For God's sakes, don't run your blow driers at the same time or you'll burn the house down!"
But every Christmas morning my sisters ran their hair driers at the same time – they didn't burn the house down, but did blow several fuses. And every year we were late for Mass. We stood in the aisles EVERY year.
My sisters and I are in our 30s and 40s now and we laugh about these memories. The memories, in fact, are all we really wanted for Christmas, but we were too young to know it then.
I know it now. Gifts don't mean much, but people do and our health does and our love for each other does. For most of the Christmases of my life, everybody has been healthy and blessed.
That's all I want for Christmas this year. More good memories. That's what every kid really wants, too, and we ought to give it to them.
Instead of a bunch of stuff.
I was an only child, and the last thing I wanted was a brother or sister! All the kids I knew who had brothers and sisters seemed to fight all the time with them. My wife comes from a rather big family, and they all get along very well, though.
......then I could wish you "Merry Christmas."
How long since you could say "Sister Suzy sitting on a thistle?"
Yeah, they grew up.
I dunno -- but gosh oh gee, how happy I'd be, if I could only whistle (thhhh, thhhh)
So I can wish you Merry Christmas!
SO all you want for Christmas is your two front teeth?
Okay, time out. I think we pounded this one until it's lifeless.
You swapped rawhide bones so you could give them all to the dog? Huh? Is this some kind of cult thing?
True...after all
Santa got run over by a reindeer
Oh no you don't.
I thought it was Grandma........
Ssssshhhh...
I was thinking the same thing--Looks like he didn't get memories for Christmas, either!
We have a children's book called "Santa Mouse." It's a long poem about a mouse that goes along with Santa, then he falls off the sleigh and gets lost. He has a small package tied with yellow ribbon, so he goes into a house and puts the package in the Christmas tree, and when Santa gets to the house he sees the light bounce off the yellow ribbon and finds Santa Mouse. So we always leave a small present tied with a yellow ribbon in the Christmas tree for our kids to find, from Santa Mouse. It's one of their favorite things on Christmas morning.
You're not alone ... I have a few "senior moments" now and then but seriously, it's not the things ... it's the people that make a holiday or an event.
It's too bad. They cheat their kids and themselves.
Sometimes just sitting around and reading a book with a snack is comforting or just sitting back and looking at the clouds ... then they start to open up more.
Cat's in the Cradle comes to mind with today's parenting:
Cat's In The Cradle
~Harry Chapin
My child arrived just the other day,
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay,
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talking 'for I knew it, and as he grew
He said "I'm gonna be like you, dad, you know I'm gonna be like you"
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you comin' home dad?" "I don't know when,
But we'll get together then, You know we'll have a good time then"
My son turned ten just the other day
He said "Thanks for the ball dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw"
I said "Not today I got a lot to do" He said "That's OK"
He walked away but his smile never dimmed,
It said I'm gonna be like him, yeah,
You know I'm gonna be like him
Well he came from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son I'm proud of you can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and he said with a smile,
"What I'd really like dad is to borrow the car keys,
See you later can I have them please?"
I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said "I'd love to dad if I could find the time,
You see the my new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talkin' to you dad
It's sure nice talkin' to you"
And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me,
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you comin' home son?" "I don't know when,
But we'll get together then, Dad,
We're gonna have a good time then"
You can have them back when you apoligize.
Just like most the rednecks in my county...
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