Most likely, bringing in the nightly stack of wood for the heater was the excuse we used. On a cold, starry December night, my brothers and I slipped from the woodshed to the corncrib and flashed the beam from Daddy’s trusty flashlight through the crack between the slats.
There it was, a black and white bicycle, with lots of chrome. Just as we’d imagined. As we peered into the building, it didn’t matter to me that there was only one bike. Or that it was a boy’s style Western Flyer rider. Nor even that I was too small to ride it at the time. It was simply the thrill of anticipation, joy in sharing the moment with my older brothers.
Recently a friend was talking about buying Christmas gifts for her grandchildren. During our conversation she commented on the effort and expense she put into picking out their presents yet could recall nothing about her own as a child. She could only recollect the time she spent with family and the sheer pleasure of the season.
Coincidentally, just a few days later I came across an old “Family Circus” cartoon by Jeff and Bill Keane that carried a similar message. The parents portrayed in the drawing were watching their four children around the tree as they opened gifts. They referred to the children—“they won’t know until they’re grown but their BEST gifts are the memories they are making.”
So true. Although there were plenty of packages under my childhood tree, other than the bicycle, like my friend noted, I have little memory of actual gifts my siblings and I received. Here is what I really remember…
Loading the tree we cut from our woods with tinsel, tossing it into the air to land as it wished. Peppermint candy sticks. Butterflies in my tummy, practicing my part in the third-grade Christmas program. Mom’s special candies and cakes that seemed to appear only at that time of year. Wearing my favorite red outfit to church. Daddy’s annual contribution of sweets, a huge box of candy he hid away and presented with a sheepish grin (because he had usually taken a sample already).
Finally, Christmas morning…Daddy answering our pre-dawn pleas with “go back to bed, its 5 a.m.” (Wonder how many of us share a similar memory.)
After gifts and breakfast, we were off to my grandparents’ houses where there would be the very best part of Christmas—my cousins— along with other family members.
Like my friend, most of us are guilty of buying our loved ones too many material gifts, putting far too much emphasis on “things.” But objects wear out and break just like the pair of plastic high-heeled child’s shoes I received one year (a gift I do remember, maybe because I cried when I broke the heel off of one on Christmas night).
And though my memories are quite ordinary, if I could put a red bow on them and share with my nearest and dearest, I would do so. Because memories last a lifetime.
By the way, between us three siblings, we wore that bike out.
