Uncategorized 25 Sep 2007 02:07 pm
Christmas past
This Grist essay about crappy toys reminded me of what may have been the best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten.
I might have been six or so. Other kids sit on Santa’s lap and want a Barbie Hot Times Igloo with Light-up Polar Bear Friend or something. Not me. When Santa asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I shouted, “Banana bread!” Or so I’m told. I don’t remember it. What I do remember is that for Christmas I did get banana bread, baked (or so said the note) by Mrs. Claus herself, a whole loaf of my very own that I didn’t have to share unless I wanted to. Along with it came the recipe and (oh joy!) a whole set of wooden kitchen utensils just for me — spoons without holes, spoons with holes, and even a fascinating wooden meat tenderizer. I’d never seen one of those before and had no idea what it was supposed to be, though I assure you that possibilities presented themselves. It takes a very confident person to give a small child a spiky wooden mallet.
What about you guys? What stands out as a truly wonderful present?
on 25 Sep 2007 at 2:34 pm 1.Karen said …
A pair of socks. Perfectly ordinary socks: dress socks or sport socks or uncomfortable scratchy woolen socks, I no longer remember which.
This story is going to sound horribly sentimental; I do apologize in advance.
My grandmother moved in with us for a few months when I was two, after my grandfather died. My first memory is of sitting on her lap, being taught to read. When I was six she wrote me a poem about penguins, sparking another obsession. For my tenth birthday she gave me my first Scrabble game. Throughout my teens we exchanged homespun crossword puzzles or anacrostics for each other in lieu of birthday cards. She revelled in silly games around the giving of gifts: packaging half a dozen small trinkets inside a refrigerator-sized box; presenting a tiny box containing the first clue of a treasure hunt to a larger present; buying the weirdest prepackaged gift boxes she could find.
When I was 18, her Christmas present was a series of boxes within boxes, a trinket or a book or a cassette tape within each layer, on top of another wrapped box. One box was wrapped in a tartan blanket, all taped up as though it were paper.
A few months later, my grandmother had a stroke and lost most of her speech.
A few months after that, it was summer, and one day I took the blanket out to the beach for a picnic. I unfolded it, shook it out, laid it down, and invited my friends to sit, when one of them reported an odd bump near the middle. We all stood up and I turned the blanket over: right in its centre was another Christmas present, wrapped in red tartan wrapping paper which exactly matched the pattern of the blanket. It had lain inside the fold for eight months, the last joke my grandmother would ever be able to play on me.
Inside was a pair of perfectly ordinary socks.
on 25 Sep 2007 at 3:24 pm 2.Cam Sculpin said …
That’s a beautiful story. I think I would have liked your grandmother.
on 25 Sep 2007 at 5:13 pm 3.Jake said …
My personal favorite gift of all time was when I was 10. For my birthday, my father had gone to the public library and managed to finagle me an adult library card. It involved several signed waivers, a deposit, and some strange paperwork. At our town library, children under 16 could only take out 2 books at a time, and only from the children’s wing. With the adult card, I could take out as many books as I wanted, from any section. My father made it very clear that all overdue fines would have to be paid by me.
On my birthday, we went to the library and I got book on snakes (which lots of pictures), The Great Brain (from the children’s section), a record called Dimensions, and an adult book on Dinosaurs.
Two days later, I’m told, my parents bought me my own dictionary, because I spent too much time asking them what specific words meant.
on 25 Sep 2007 at 7:00 pm 4.Sarah said …
I can tell you all about my fancy-pants Peugeot racing bike: I opened a shoe-box with the manual in it, and thought to myself, Oh, great, of course they’re going to get me a book about bikes before I get an actual bike. My parents said, Uh, Sarah, maybe you should go out on the porch, where, perplexed, I found the actual bike. Sweet!
I could talk about the huge box given to me by my ten-year-old brother, which was filled with wadded up newspaper. At the very bottom was a torn-off piece of cardboard box, which read: December Fools. (Still have it.)
I could mention my aunt getting me whatever Stephen King book was newly published every year for Christmas. (blissful reading for the 26th)
But I think my favorite present ever was the full box (BOX!) of leather-bound books that my parents got me for my 13th (I think?) birthday. An acknowledgment of what I liked, what I really enjoyed. A present for me, not for who they wanted me to be.
on 25 Sep 2007 at 8:41 pm 5.desolina said …
every year i ask santa for a severed head. i never get one. christmas sucks.
on 25 Sep 2007 at 9:00 pm 6.Cam Sculpin said …
Any particular kind of severed head? Because, y’know… Hmmm… I wonder if something might be done.
on 26 Sep 2007 at 2:22 am 7.sphinx_n_herhat said …
Best present ever: a purple velvet Edwardian hat with a black ostrich feather. My then-boyfriend gave it to me. It wasn’t just the hat, which was gorgeous and fit perfectly. But in giving it to me, it seemed to say he was telling me he thought I was the sort of woman who went with the hat.