Recently,
I was reading a list of people telling about their best and worst gifts. I, of
course, thought about my best, worst, and funniest Christmas gifts.
My
worst?
I was a college freshman sharing an apartment
with three other girls. Two were old friends and shared one bedroom and I
shared the other with the remaining girl. The two of us just tolerated each
other.
For Christmas, we exchanged gifts right
before we went home for the holiday break. The two friends gave me thoughtful
gifts. The one girl owned a gorgeous cameo that I had admired many times, she
gifted it to me. All I remember of the other friend's gift is it showed she
knew me and what I’d like.
Now my bedroom mate.
She gave all three of us a set of earrings.
Mine was a small gold knot, barely big enough to be seen when worn. I liked
them. Small earrings like that are my style.
However, at the time, I didn’t own or wear
earrings.
Why?
Because I hated clip-on's and didn’t have
pierced ears.
She got us pierced earrings. I lost them long
before I ever got my ears pierced, about four years later.
I know there are others, mostly attempts
Jerry made, like the year he got me an outfit that was too small. (Okay, so
yeah, he thought I wasn’t that fat.) Or the black jacket he got me. (Yes, I
needed a new jacket, one with a hood and not black.) But his poor attempts led
to my funniest gift.
One year, I cajoled one of my daughters to
do the gift shopping on his behalf. (This is a much better solution than me
getting my own.)
Several years ago, possibly the first year
I did this, I was handed a gift and ripped the paper just enough for me to see
what it was. I started laughing and my family had to nearly beg me to open it
the rest of the way and show them what it was. I would not tell them what was
so funny.
You see, they’d gotten me a game of
Battleship. I love games and it is one I was glad to get. (Royce completely
enjoys stomping me when we play it.)
No, what was so funny, and I why I wouldn’t
explain what had me laughing, was somewhere still under the tree was a
different version of Battleship that I’d gotten for Tony, actually hoping we’d
play it together. When he finally opened it they figured out what was so funny.
My best gift?
I can remember being excited by gifts I’d received
and I can remember really liking some gifts, but I don’t necessarily remember
what they were.
I can remember what I got for Christmas
when I was 10 years old.
A belief in Santa Clause. (The physical gift
was the guitar I’d been begging for.)
In the post, I wrote for December 26, 2018
(mirrortwins), I mention our brother’s snooping and the year our mother hid our gifts
somewhere other than our house.
Since he was such a snoop and loved to
spoil things for us, Momma started doing things like bring home already wrapped
gifts. He learned how to open the tape to sneak a peek without tearing the
paper. (Hence taping every seam which made this harder to do.)
Now the year he was nine.
Momma did not hide a single gift anywhere
in our house. We know because he snooped and told.
We compensated for the total lack of Santa
gift by making a TON of small gifts for everyone we could think of. Most of
them were pictures we drew. (We had plenty of paper and crayons, but not much
else.)
Our living room was about half-buried in
the blizzard of gifts by the time Christmas Eve came around, but we all knew those
simple gifts were all we were getting so we weren’t excited about Christmas.
That morning, with the sun shining brightly
in my eyes, I got up first because I was hungry. As I made my way to the
kitchen, I looked towards the living room. There I saw four good-sized packages
in front of the tree (and a mound of small gifts).
Took us years to figure out how Momma
managed that.
So belief restored, at least a little bit.
So what are your best, worst, funniest
gifts?
Merry
Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanzaa, and Happy New Year. Also happy
birthday to my wonderful son-in-law.
Smile.
Make the day a brighter day.
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