On the radio today they were asking listeners to call in and
tell about their best Christmas memory. I did not call in
because that is not one of the things I would do and anyway,
I was driving down the road and don??™t like to use my mobile
phone when I am driving. But I did think and continued to
think the rest of the day. I finally decided that not just
one but several Christmas memories would fit the best or
favorite memory category.
The first one and I think
probably the best memory was the year when I was about 7
years old . I got a wristwatch from Santa and some fruit in
my stocking. My parents were not rich and couldn??™t afford a
lot of gifts so Santa did not bring many. I don??™t know how
they even afforded the watch but I imagine daddy worked
extra to make the money. I was so excited to get the watch
but the first thing my daddy and I did after I opened the
box was to get some of his small tools so we could open the
back of the watch.
You see, both he and I
loved looking inside mechanical things and we just had to
see the insides of that watch. I don??™t think I will ever
forget him telling me, "look it is a 17 jewel watch". I had
no idea what that meant but it must have been special or he
would not have mentioned it.
The next Christmas that
brings good memories to me is the year before our daughter
was born. Our three sons all had pajamas with kittens on the
front and I can never forget them running around the living
room in those pajamas as we decorated the tree. They were
all shouting "me, me" when it was time to put the angel on
top of the tree. I don??™t remember whose year it was to put
the angel up there but it was something that they looked
forward to doing. The angel was a small one that I had
bought the year we got married for our first tree. She is
now over 40 years old and sits on the top of our daughter??™s
tree every year. The year she got married, she came and told
me "I want that angel for my own tree." I knew her brothers
wouldn??™t care so she took the angel home with her.
Another memory is a
double memory. I was a very curious child and always wanted
to know in advance what I was getting from Santa. My oldest
son seems to have inherited that trait from me. When I was
in the 8th grade, I had asked for a radio for
Christmas and about a week before Christmas I made a
thorough search of the house to see if I could find it. I
didn??™t but on Christmas morning it was under the tree. I
kept that radio for years until it finally wore out. My
parents told me they knew I would look for the radio ahead
of time and even knew when I had done my search. They said,
"We put the radio up on our closet shelf the next day. If
you had waited one more day, you would have found it." The
second half of this memory is the year I knew that my oldest
son, David was a lot like me but went a bit further to know
what was inside packages. I suspected he was opening
anything with his name on it to see what he was getting. I
decided to leave off names on all of the gifts and instead
put a code that only I knew to indicate who would get the
gift. I don??™t think he ever figured out which code was his.
Looking back over the
years and the many Christmas holidays, I remember so many
good things. I remember a lot of the gifts that I received
but the ones I seem to remember the most were not the ones
that cost the most. The ones I remember are the ones that
were special because of something that happened at the time,
like my daddy and I opening the back of the watch. My family
did not have a lot of money so my gifts were not expensive.
That did not matter. What counted was that I got something
that I liked and enjoyed having. I still enjoy getting gifts
that are special with meaning more than cost. I have many
small gifts that my children gave me and I hope that someday
I can give them back to them so they can treasure them also.
There is a song that
says, "Little things mean a lot." and I think that is true.
Our treasures are frequently little things such as gifts we
have received or memories of things that have happened.
?© Doris B. Fandal
December 9, 2002 |
