Posts Tagged ‘Christmas’
Gift Remembered
My sister, Mary, commented that she likes when I write about my early years growing up in our fabulous family. I always feel a little unsure about writing my version of the past for an audience that includes others who were present at the time and enough older than me that they probably were able to form more dependable memories of the actual events.
I have an impression of our holiday gift giving involving a certain amount of shenanigans. I’m sure my siblings will be able to clarify, but I have a vague recollection of someone needing to follow a trail of yarn that had been fiendishly “spider-webbed” around the furnishings of the room, to get to the prize at the end. Maybe that was just a party game. We had a fair amount of those events, too.
There is one gift I remember in particular that I was fooled by, that went on to become one of my prized possessions. I’m guessing it was the Christmas of 1967, because November of that year is when the album, “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd.” was released by The Monkees.
That year I would have been 8-years-old. For a kid that age, the usual assumption is: the bigger the box, the better the present. Well, the length and width of this box were big enough to fit a record album, but it was deep enough to hold something much larger. It was thrilling. I unwrapped the present, removed the cover, and found nothing but tissue paper inside the box.
They had taped the album to the cover of the box. I think it was a little frustrating for me, but that was definitely diminished by the excellence of the gift. I don’t recall actually putting the album on the old hi-fi, but I remember studying the front and back cover of the album while listening to the songs, over and over.
I still have the 3rd cut on the second side memorized. It’s the lead-in to the song “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and it is titled, “Peter Percival Patterson’s Pet Pig Porky.”
Peter Percival Patterson’s pet pig Porky ate so much pie that do you know what he did? He popped.
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‘Tis Seasonal
I am truly living a storybook life here, folks. The season is upon us when decorators of the world pull out everything they have saved for years that has anything to do with December holidays and inundate their surroundings with color and lights.
Our place looks like Christmas magic all of a sudden. The only thing missing is little kids in footsie pajamas running around with eyes like saucers, over-anxiously waiting a visit from the guy in red who travels by reindeer.
We were blessed once again with a visit from Cyndie’s mom who worked tirelessly for the entire day yesterday to provide her exquisite skills in bringing the spirit of the season to life in our home.
She went beyond the call of duty before even arriving by taking time the day prior to shop for baking supplies and accoutrements like garlands with lights. With barely a pause to catch her breath, yesterday she cooked and baked and decorated, then helped me run an errand to drop off a car for service, then helped get Cyndie down to the barn for her first visit with the horses since the surgery.
She is a superwoman!
The best highlight of the day —among many— was having Cyndie get bundled up to be outside, her walking part way down the driveway with crutches, then hopping in the back of her mom’s car for the rest of the distance to the barn, and finally communing with the horses that had come up to the barn to see her.
They were a little freaked by her crutches and walker, but very happy to see her after all this time she has been away.
Back in the kitchen, Cyndie and her mom moved into full production mode for a while and cookie smells were mixing with the home-made caramels and Chex mix snack that had just come out of the oven.
What could I do? You can’t fight this kind of momentum. I went upstairs and put on the holiday music, came down and set about testing the goods coming out of the oven.
I told you, it’s a storybook life I’m livin’!
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Relative Something 