When I try to think of my favorite childhood Christmas gift, there is no one singular gift that stands out. There are moments in time, however brief, that I remember. Most I remember not for the gift, but for what the gift represented.
There was the time my brother gave me the first Christmas gift he ever bought me with money he had earned from his first paying job. I knew at that moment that my brother was growing up and out of childhood, even as he sat on the floor and played racecars with me.
Or the time my mother bought a Masonic ring for my father’s Christmas gift and packaged it in a box that was a box within a box within a box within a box and so on. She packed bricks in the bottom of the box so my father would never guess what the present could be. My father was a master at guessing his presents before he opened them. When Christmas morning arrived, we were breathless with excitement at pulling one over on Daddy. He tried to pick the present up, looked around at our eager faces, and stated “It’s a power tool!” with every confidence. We giggled when we knew he was wrong with his guess. More giggles came as he opened box after box and the boxes got tinier and tinier. At last he arrived at the box that contained the ring. When he opened the box something unexpected happened…my father cried. It was one of a very few times that I remember my father crying. To this day, I don’t know exactly what made him cry, but I suspect my mother bought that ring at some sacrifice and after saving for quite a long time. That’s how things were in our family.
There was a time when I was older, in college already. Every penny was a struggle for my parents. It wasn’t easy putting a child through college. That particular Christmas there weren’t many presents to go around and my parents had decided to give each of us a $100 bill for Christmas. Again, I’m sure they saved for a very long time and that was a goodly sum for the day. My mother didn’t want us to be disappointed in only receiving the one gift, so she devised a game that was similar to a scavenger hunt to find the envelope containing the crisp bill. One of my tasks was to turn around three times, pat myself on the back and exclaim “I’m smart. I’m a college student now.” or some such nonsense. I remember it because it was fun and clever and so like my mother to think of us in that way. I also remember it because it was the last Christmas I spent with my Aunt Margaret Nelle. She passed away that January. We knew she was dying, and I can still see the joy in her eyes as she watched us play those silly little games.
As you peruse this site to find gifts for your loved ones, I’m aware some of you may agonize over that perfect gift. But, remember, the best gift of all is love. There can never be too much of that.
Got a favorite childhood Christmas gift? Leave a comment for others to read.
Christmas
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My favorite childhood Christmas gift was the year I got my record player, as they were called in those days. I don’t really remember much about my childhood but I think I must have been around 10 or 12 years old and was beginning to become really interested in music, especially the rock and roll music played on the radio. I know this will sound very strange to a lot of people but even at that age, I still believed in Santa Claus but was beginning to have thoughts about Santa Claus being my parents. Santa Claus was so magical to me that I never wanted to give up believing in him. This one particular Christmas, I had asked Santa Claus for a record player and some records. This terminology is showing my age! I awoke that Christmas morning and there was my record player and some record albums! I know now that much sacrifice was in that gift, too. But as I was going through the record albums, I saw Paul Revere and the Raiders and some other groups who had recorded albums that I really wanted and liked, but I also noticed there were a couple of albums from the Big Band era and thought, “I didn’t ask for these. Who are these bands?” Then I realized that this was the music that my mother and daddy listened to and enjoyed and I realized that Santa Claus was my parents. I never said anything to them about it for years and just kept pretending about Santa Claus for them. Now as I look back on all the Christmases we had, I realize that the magic of Christmas was kept alive by my parents and they were definitely my Santa Claus and I’m thankful for that.
I love to read posts like this!
Remembering Christmas is one of my favorite things to do
In coming back to this a year later, I have yet another memorable Christmas. Again, I don’t really remember how old I was but I’m sure by today’s standards, I was too old to “believe in Santa Claus”. My brother and I were suspicious (he’s three years younger). One day when we were home alone or either just able to sneak around and do this, we noticed that a big tall trunk in my parents’ bedroom was nailed shut and we could not open it. This was a trunk where my mother kept all her scrap fabrics from all the sewing she did. I loved to play in that old trunk and just look at all the treasures she had in there. But since it was NAILED shut, my brother and I thought, “aha!” We found a hammer and opened the trunk and underneath the top pile of fabrics were all of our Christmas gifts to be placed under the tree that year from Santa. Oh, it was so much fun! We just looked and oohed and aahed over everything and thought we were so clever. But when Christmas morning arrived and we woke up and went to look under the tree, our Christmas magic had been deflated. We did not find anything under the tree that year that we had not seen in that trunk and it took all the fun out of Christmas for us that year. I think I can speak for my brother and say he felt the same way I did. I think I realized that year how to keep the magic in Christmas.
Santa takes notice of children who peek. They may not find anything else from Santa under the tree if they do!!!