Memories of Christmas Past
The "Joano Farc" team joined us for dinner last night and we started talking about family Christmas traditions and, eventually, worst and best Christmas gifts ever received. I thought it would be fun to share my worst and best - and invite you to share yours! So, me first - here goes ...
To set the stage, my dad is an only child, which makes me and my sister the only grandchildren. You guessed it - the sun clearly rose and set over our pretty little heads as far as Grandma Aggie and Grandpa Pat were concerned. Yes, these were the "fun" grandparents - they knew what we liked and always fixed our favorite meals. Grandma taught me how to bake bread and make a pie. Grandpa let us dig potatoes in the garden and pull carrots. He also taught us how to fish and split kindling (another story for another time.) Every visit was a holiday and every day was a picnic. So imagine my shock - at the tender age of 7 1/2 to receive my worst Christmas gift ever from my Grandpa Pat.
Santa always came to the Morgenthaler's on Christmas Eve. Somehow, he managed to sneak in and out while we were eating dinner. Don't ask me how he did it - it is truly a Christmas miracle. Anyway, I digress ... After dinner was the opening of the gifts. My grandma received her annual bottle of Channel #5 from Grandpa, blah, blah, blah, and finally it was time for little Tracie Anne to open one of the biggest packages under the tree. The smile spread across my little face as the ginormous box was placed before me - I tore into the paper only to find ... (wait for it) ... a huge, yellow Tonka Dump Truck! Now granted, it was huge - and heaven knows it was yellow - but it was also a dump truck and I was clearly a little girl. I sobbed and sobbed (everyone else laughed and laughed) that my very own Grandpa Pat would give me such a terrible, thoughtless gift! Now my little sister received a pale green "generic brand" pick-up truck with a horse trailer ... AND two plastic horses! She was thrilled and my suspicions were confirmed ... they really did like her best! After all, she got horses!
Well, I don't want to leave you hanging ... as you may have already guessed, only a few short months later (our next visit to Grandma and Grandpa's) that truck was well on its way to becoming my favorite Christmas gift ever! There was no end to the stuff my sister and I hauled around that house in those trucks. Everything from Grandma's collection of empty Avon jars and bottles to empty toilet paper rolls to produce from the garden. Some of my best memories of childhood center around that huge, yellow Tonka Dump Truck! And even better yet, being a grown-up and watching my own kids haul the same stuff around the same house in the same huge, yellow Tonka Dump Truck!
Grandma Aggie, my last living grandparent, passed peacefully away last spring. But not before my own grown kids had collected many lasting memories of her as well as of their other three great-grandparents. What a blessing for me and for my kids!
Your turn - send in your stories. We all want to hear 'em!
Love you,
Tracie
To set the stage, my dad is an only child, which makes me and my sister the only grandchildren. You guessed it - the sun clearly rose and set over our pretty little heads as far as Grandma Aggie and Grandpa Pat were concerned. Yes, these were the "fun" grandparents - they knew what we liked and always fixed our favorite meals. Grandma taught me how to bake bread and make a pie. Grandpa let us dig potatoes in the garden and pull carrots. He also taught us how to fish and split kindling (another story for another time.) Every visit was a holiday and every day was a picnic. So imagine my shock - at the tender age of 7 1/2 to receive my worst Christmas gift ever from my Grandpa Pat.
Santa always came to the Morgenthaler's on Christmas Eve. Somehow, he managed to sneak in and out while we were eating dinner. Don't ask me how he did it - it is truly a Christmas miracle. Anyway, I digress ... After dinner was the opening of the gifts. My grandma received her annual bottle of Channel #5 from Grandpa, blah, blah, blah, and finally it was time for little Tracie Anne to open one of the biggest packages under the tree. The smile spread across my little face as the ginormous box was placed before me - I tore into the paper only to find ... (wait for it) ... a huge, yellow Tonka Dump Truck! Now granted, it was huge - and heaven knows it was yellow - but it was also a dump truck and I was clearly a little girl. I sobbed and sobbed (everyone else laughed and laughed) that my very own Grandpa Pat would give me such a terrible, thoughtless gift! Now my little sister received a pale green "generic brand" pick-up truck with a horse trailer ... AND two plastic horses! She was thrilled and my suspicions were confirmed ... they really did like her best! After all, she got horses!
Well, I don't want to leave you hanging ... as you may have already guessed, only a few short months later (our next visit to Grandma and Grandpa's) that truck was well on its way to becoming my favorite Christmas gift ever! There was no end to the stuff my sister and I hauled around that house in those trucks. Everything from Grandma's collection of empty Avon jars and bottles to empty toilet paper rolls to produce from the garden. Some of my best memories of childhood center around that huge, yellow Tonka Dump Truck! And even better yet, being a grown-up and watching my own kids haul the same stuff around the same house in the same huge, yellow Tonka Dump Truck!
Grandma Aggie, my last living grandparent, passed peacefully away last spring. But not before my own grown kids had collected many lasting memories of her as well as of their other three great-grandparents. What a blessing for me and for my kids!
Your turn - send in your stories. We all want to hear 'em!
Love you,
Tracie
2 Comments:
It's probably typical of my generation but shortly after graduating from elementary school and moving on to middle school, my brother and I were anticipating a particular gift for Christmas. The SUPER NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM! That's right, back in the days when a video game was a video game and the only thing between you and sudden death were the A,B,X and Y buttons. Back when all SNES games had a predictable pattern given enough game play and the games were simple enough so as not to cause a person to lose months in an entirely fictitious world. The Super NES! WOW! Well, my brother and I opened presents that Christmas day but there was no SNES to be found. As we cleaned up the abundance of dessimated wrapping paper, my mom pulled out a hidden final package. Low and behold, it was the SNES. I will probably always remember the excitement at recieving such a thing. Just recently I procured a copy of our firts game, Contra 3: Alien Wars for the system for nostalgia sake.
Remember when I got Tip? He was in a balloon--that's about all I remember :)
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