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Capture Heart Tugs

Posted on December 20, 2023 by susanrray

Are you capturing Heart Tugs, those times with when heartstrings tighten?  Are you taking time to appreciate brief and jumbled moments in daily busyness? I made a few notes just to remember such times.

“Sit anywhere.  I’m ready to call numbers,” I said as eight Grands, ages 8 -18, moved from chair to chair around our dining room table, covered with Bingo cards and colored discs.  Youngest Grand moved her chair between two teen-age cousins.  Boy cousins, ages 9 and 10, sat side-by-side – close enough to put one arm over each other’s shoulder and play Bingo with one hand.  My suggestion of anywhere wasn’t my Grands’ plans.

On a short road trip to the Muddy Pond General Store to buy Christmas candy, two Grands and I sang Christmas carols.  I stopped singing to listen.  Micah’s 10-year-old voice was clear and pure, “May your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmases be white.”

Twelve-year-old Lucy chose her candy quickly.  But she deliberated a long time choosing something for her older sister who had given Lucy $5 to shop for her.  “Annabel really likes gummy bears, but she can’t eat them with her braces.  Look, there’s orange slices, but they’re sticky, too.  Hmmm, chocolate covered pretzels.  She’ll like those!”  And she did.  Lucy knows Annabel well.

Normally, I don’t like shoes left in the middle of a room, but when 18-year-old Grand left his white Converse Chuck Taylor high tops in front of the living room chair where he took them off and then went upstairs to bed, I took a picture of the shoes.  Just to remember that he still thinks it’s fun to spend the night with Husband and me.

When I unpack Christmas decorations, I treasure many gifts from students when I taught.  One gift given more than twenty years ago still makes my eyes water. As the classroom Christmas party ended, 4th grader Annie walked slowly toward me, near my desk which was covered with student gifts. “Mrs. Ray,” she said. “I’ve got something for you.”  She held a small gift tightly in her hands.

            “Can I open it now?”  I asked.

            She laid her gift, wrapped in wrinkled red foil paper and tied with a frayed gold bow, in my hand.  “Yes, but nobody else gets to see.”

            While I removed many strips of tape, Annie leaned against me.  “It’s not much,” she said.  Inside a well-worn gold paper Avon box was a button.  A plastic gold coat button with tiny glistening rhinestones.  “Read the note,” Annie said.

                        To:  Mrs. Ray

                        I’m sorry, but the present isn’t that much it’s all I had.  I hope you enjoy it.

                        Merry Christmas

            Annie was wrong.  Her present was much. 

            So much that every Christmas I wear that gold button, held by a safety pin, on sweaters and coats.  So much that it reminds me that giving a Christmas gift isn’t about the gift. 

   Heart Tugs.  Catch all you can and cherish them. 

           

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What’s the theme of your Christmas tree?

Posted on December 13, 2023 by susanrray

Must a Christmas tree have a theme?  Like the trees at the Cookeville History Museum?  Or the twenty-foot-tall trees in retail stores that are draped with red ribbons, gold bells, and white harps?

Last week when I took the lid off the cardboard box labeled Christmas ornaments, lying on top was a piece of notebook paper – written on both sides and every line filled.  The top line reads, “Christmas Eve 2013 6:45 a.m.” 

            I began with these words: “I love this time alone.  Early morning. Almost daylight.  Coffee.  Christmas tree decorated and lights shine brightly.  All my favorite ornaments are on this tree.”  And then I described many of the ornaments.

The plastic Santa sitting on a white reindeer, with a broken leg, was on Mom and Dad’s tree when I was a kid in the 1950’s. Two white square plastic lanterns decorated the package that Husband gave me Christmas 1968 – the gift was my engagement ring.  

The red plastic bells were on our first tree that we decorated in 1969.  I made the felt tree skirt from a kit for that first tree, and I embroidered and hand-stitched the sequins. (Still attached now, fifty-four years later.)

During the early 1970’s when Husband worked at the Cain-Sloan department store in Nashville, we bought the silver balls that have Currier and Ives scenes printed on them.

I made the fabric calico print stuffed candy canes and bells and the plywood paint-by-the-number ornaments when Daughter and Son were toddlers.  When these ornaments were handled and played with and fell onto the floor, they didn’t break.  These and the plastic red bells and plastic white lanterns were the only ornaments on our tree for a few years.

Daughter and Son made the felt blue bird and brown gingerbread man, both backed with white poster board and hung with paper clips, when they kindergarten students at Northeast School. The two Walt Disney World ornaments were bought during family trips – one in 1981 and the second, New Year’s 1989.

I made the quilted mitten from scraps of Granny’s quilt that I cut up to make Daughter and a few of her friends a heart pillow when they graduated from Cookeville High School in 1992.  The flock of assorted birds are gifts from students when I taught at Capshaw Elementary School from the late 1980s until 2008.

While she was a college student, Daughter made wooden ornaments that have burned designs.  The clear ball hanging with a gold ribbon is filled with sand from a Bermuda beach where my college girlfriends and I took a summer trip in 1997.

Husband’s mom and dad gave us the red, white and blue patriotic ornaments.  In 2009 when they were toddlers, Samuel and Elsie made the salt dough pink heart and blue circle.

Since 2013, more ornaments have been collected.  One that reminds me why we celebrate Christmas: a hand-carved olive wood nativity ornament that I bought in Jerusalem in 2018.

The theme of our tree is like many of yours – a memory tree.

December 13, 2023

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Walk Through the Christmas Forest

Posted on December 6, 2023 by susanrray

While wandering through the Christmas Forest at the Cookeville History Museum, the words of a carol came to mind:  O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree, How lovely are your branches!

            These branches aren’t decorated with apples, gilded nuts and red paper strips like on the trees that German settlers introduced in the United States during the early 1800s.  And I didn’t see red balls or ropes of glittery beads or silver tinsel or Santa Claus.  Although there are a few gold stars atop trees, most toppers would never be on your home Christmas tree.  

            These trees have been decorated by members of twenty-eight local civic or nonprofit organizations and each tree reflects the organization’s mission and each tree is unique. 

The organizations range alphabetically from AARF – All About Rescue and Fixin’ Inc. (an organization made up of a group of volunteers whose goal is to save the lives of animals) to WCTE (the Upper Cumberland’s Public Broadcasting Station). 

When you walk through this exhibit, you’ll find favorite trees just as I did.  I had to look closely to realize what the ornaments on the Tennessee Tech Archives tree really are.  Flat circles, all the same size and decorated differently:  some with lace, some with yarn, some with sparkling red stones, some painted.  Now I know what to do with the many CDs that Husband and I collected in the 1990s.  And what first appeared to be tiny Ferris wheels are actually small film reels that are painted gold and silver and dipped in glitter.

Taking me back to the 1960’s, Polaroid film boxes, tied together with gold ribbon, lay under this tabletop tree.  And beside the film boxes is a sheet of paper printed with QR codes – one that lets me hear a woman I met in 1965 and whom I instantly admired.  A click on my cell phone gives a recording of Joan Derryberry, wife of former TTU president Dr. Everett Derryberry, interviewed by Calvin Dickinson and Harvey Neufeldt in 1988.

I don’t understand how a small black and white symbol allows me to hear voices that were recorded more than thirty years ago, but I’m thankful the folk at Tennessee Tech Archives made it possible.  

The Velma Thompson Doll Collection tree is all pink. This tree is for those of us who ever owned a Barbie or bought Barbies for our children and grands or saw the recent Barbie movie. 

The Master Gardeners’ tree is laden with dried hydrangeas and yellow cosmos and white daisies and tiger swallowtail butterflies. It’s like walking through a garden.

Remember those encyclopedias we used?  Leave it to a librarian to create a tree of books.  The Putnam County Library tree is a stack of books – shaped like a six-foot Christmas tree.  It’s definitely the most unique.

Sometime before January 3, walk through the Christmas Forest.  I’ll take my Grands.  I wonder which trees will be their favorites?

The Cookeville History Museum, located at 40 East Broad Street, is open Tuesday – Saturday 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

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Celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas

Posted on November 22, 2023 by susanrray

Tis’ the day before Thanksgiving and all through the town Christmas lights shine brightly – much to some people’s dismay.

Don’t skip Thanksgiving.  Don’t let Christmas lights and glitter and tinsel push Thanksgiving aside.   Thanksgiving is the time to be thankful.  Enjoy the last days of fall while a few golden and rusty orange leaves hang on tree branches. 

Celebrate Thanksgiving Day with family, friends, food and football.  And take in the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade while the cornbread dressing and pumpkin pies are in the oven.  Let the Thanksgiving spirit carry you through the weekend as you eat turkey sandwiches, watch more football and gather with family and friends. 

People who say that Thanksgiving is their favorite holiday have good reasons.  Little decorating.  No gifts.  The dinner menu is set – some would say it’s the best meal of the year.

Those same people are annoyed, almost angry, that rooftop lights on their neighbors’ homes cast shadows on their yards.  They scoff that anyone would put up Christmas trees before Thanksgiving.  How dare anyone skip Thanksgiving.  

Let the lights shine say others. A friend who decorates with Christmas lights and green garlands before Thanksgiving said she wanted to wrap herself in the Christmas spirit as long as possible.  (She might have strung Christmas lights atop her house on July 4th if everyone who lives in her house had agreed.) 

Pro-before-Thanksgiving decorators say, consider the expense and work putting up Christmas lights. Why not enjoy them as long as possible?

“The lights make me happy and I can still eat turkey and dressing,” a friend told me. Her Christmas tree, decorated only with white lights, has stood in the corner of her living room since early November.  The day after Thanksgiving, she’ll add the ornaments.

For years, I’ve said, “Don’t skip Thanksgiving!” And I hate Christmas television commercials before Thanksgiving.  My childhood traditions tell me that Christmas begins after the 4th Thursday in November. That’s an unspoken rule.

Maybe it was when I heard my friend say that the lights make her happy that I began to mellow. I thought of Thanksgivings and Christmases past.  We gathered with family and friends, and Mom and her sisters served turkey and cornbread dressing for both holiday dinners. 

So, when my family gathers around our dining room table, they’ll see a centerpiece of pumpkins, gourds and bittersweet.  Small blocks, the kind that toddlers like to stack and knock down, spell Happy Thanksgiving and ceramic pilgrims and turkeys stand on a living room table.

Nearby a two-foot wire Christmas tree is decorated with ornaments, depicting well-known local places, that I’ve bought from Cityscape through the years.  And framed family Christmas cards that Husband and I have mailed for the past eighteen years set atop the piano.  And my Grands helped me put carolers and a gingerbread house near the pilgrims.

I’ll never skip Thanksgiving, but I can be thankful and celebrate the birth of Jesus at the same time.

Both Thanksgiving and Christmas bring joy and hope.

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The Happy Little Helper is a Joyful Giver

Posted on December 28, 2022 by susanrray

There is always one gift or one story to make every Christmas unique. My thirteen-year-old Grand is this year’s story.

            Annabel is Daughter’s middle child with an older brother and sister and a younger sister and brother.  Ten days before Christmas she set up business – an in-home business – to earn money for gifts.

            “Mom, come in and see what Annabel is doing,” Daughter said when I stopped by her home to leave a borrowed waffle maker.  Annabel stood on her knees behind her work desk, a piano stool, that displayed a handmade poster:  The Happy Little Helper is IN.  In smaller letters I read ‘Handy man work and house cleaning service.’

            Three of Annabel’s siblings sat nearby on the floor when she saw me. “Hi, Gran!  How can I help you?”  She grinned waiting for my reply. 

            “Can you clean my house?”  I asked. 

            “Probably later, but Lucy and Elsie (her sisters) have some things they need done first.”

            Annabel worked; she vacuumed her sisters’ rooms and cleaned the interior of her family’s van and Husband’s car.  She didn’t clean my house because she had enough money, she told me.

            I was her shopping chauffeur and assistant.  I packed my patience and blocked out the morning.  I’ve stood in front of chewing gum displays for fifteen minutes while Annabel chose one pack – there are so many choices.

            “I can get everything at Wal Mart,” my Grand said as she buckled her seat belt. She held a small spiral notebook with only four lines written.  “I know where everything is.” 

             “Let’s go to Aisle I-17 first.”  Annabel led the way and immediately picked up a Gatorade water bottle.  I suggested that another one would be a better buy.  “No, this is the one Samuel (17-year- old brother) will like.”  I wondered how she knew which aisle.  “There’s a search and map on the store website,” my Grand explained and headed to toys where she chose Hot Wheels tracks and a Hot Wheels Lego truck for her younger brother. 

            As she stood looking at the many card and board games, I offered help.  My Grand repeated the name of the card game twice:  Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.  “Yes!  There’s only one and it was hidden behind another game. Lucy will love this!” Annabel pumped her fist.

            The hanging space for Rubic cube key chains was empty and we couldn’t find a hidden one.  With a gleam in her eye Annabel said, “I’ll get it online. It’ll be here on the 28th, and I’ll make Elsie a paper one.  She’ll be happy to get her gift later.”  Fifteen minutes after walking toward Aisle I-17, Annabel practically skipped to the self-checkout lane. 

            In my van, we searched Amazon for the key chain, ordered it, and Annabel handed me money to pay for it.  “I’ve got $3.00 left!” she said.

            Christmas 2022 will always be the year of The Happy Little Helper, the fastest shopping ever, and the happiest giver who should be on a billboard with the caption The Joy of Giving.

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Christmas Stockings

Posted on December 21, 2022 by susanrray

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. That line from “Twas’ the Night Before Christmas” conjures up happy memories.  As children, we emptied filled Christmas stockings, and now many years later, we fill them for our children and grandchildren.

            Although the author of this popular Christmas poem has been disputed, it’s documented that it was first published in the Troy Sentinel newspaper in New York on December 23, 1823.  At the time, no one claimed to have written “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” the original title, but in 1844, Clement Clark Moore acknowledged authorship when he included the poem in his poetry collection.

Moore’s poem wasn’t the beginning of Christmas stockings, but I must share that “Twas’ the Night Before Christmas” established the names of Santa’s eight tiny reindeer – all except Rudolph – and connected St. Nicholas to Christmas which led to our image of Santa Claus.

            The tradition of filled stockings began in Asia Minor when a nobleman named Nicholas, born in A. D. 280, often left gifts for children late at night.  He didn’t want anyone to know who gave the gifts so Nicholas spread the word that children must go to bed to receive gifts.

            One legend tells of a wealthy family whose life changed when the father, a merchant, fell into poverty and he feared that he couldn’t provide dowries for his three daughters.  When St. Nicholas heard this he stopped at the merchant’s home and threw three bags filled with gold coins down the chimney.  The bags fell into the girls’ stockings which were hung by the fireplace mantle to dry. 

            The next morning the girls found the coins, and, as expected, they later married and lived happily ever after. This story spread through the small village, then throughout the land, and children began to hang their stockings by the fireplace hoping to receive gifts from St. Nicholas.

            Centuries later, Moore wrote of Christmas stockings hung by the chimney.  And now, the hanging of stockings is one of the most popular Christmas traditions.  If there’s no chimney, stockings are hung from doorknobs or windowsills or kitchen counters or even left lying under Christmas trees.

            Family tradition usually determines what is in stockings.  My childhood stocking always had a huge straight peppermint candy stick and Brazil nuts – things I ate only one time a year.  I know a family that fills stockings with toothbrushes, toothpaste, and underwear.  Another includes gifts, even the most treasured gift.

            When my 11-year-old Grand and I talked about stockings, she said that stockings are fun because there are surprises inside.  “Something you didn’t ask for or put on your wish list and there’s always something to eat,” she said. 

            My Grand is right and no one is too old for Christmas stockings.  I’ll leave my empty stocking under the tree on Christmas Eve in hopes that St. Nicholas, aka Husband, will be here.  He knows my favorite candy.

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Top Toy the Year You were Born

Posted on December 14, 2022 by susanrray

I’m a sucker for anything labeled The Year You Were Born.  More than once I’ve read a birthday card listing the news of my birth year and then placed that card back on the sales rack.  I’ve listened to my birth year’s top songs even though I don’t remember them.  So, an online article entitled ‘Top holiday toys from the year you were born’ caught my attention.

            This list, published by stacker.com, begins with 1920 and was created using information from the national toy archives and The Strong National Museum of Play, neither of which I’ve heard of, but seem to validate the choices. 

            As I scrolled and looked at pictures, I realized toys include games, dolls, stuffed animals, books, and kits – many that were familiar and some that are still right here in Husband’s and my home.   The Raggedy Ann doll was the top gift in 1920, and the one that Mom made for Daughter in the late 1970’s is still on my doll bed.  We still have Tinkertoys, which were the best gift in 1922.  And everyone has probably received or given the 1925 top gift, a Teddy bear.

            Anyone else have happy memories of opening a box of crayons?  In 1926, a box of 22 Crayola Crayons was the best gift. By the early 1950s, a box of 64 crayons, with a built-in sharpener on the side of the box, was popular.

            Other top toys of the late 1920’s were a Radio Flyer wagon, a yo-yo, and a pop-up book, and all have stood the test of time.  All were gifts for my children in the 1970s and for my Grands thirty years later. 

            Scrolling past the 1930s, I found the top gift for the year I was born:  a Tonka truck.  I never owned a Tonya, but Son’s heavy metal truck sits on our garage shelf and one day while we watched his son fill the bed with sand, I suggested he take it.  Son answered, “No, let all the kids play with it here at your house.”  All eight Grands have filled that big yellow truck with sand or dirt or gravel or mulch in our backyard.

            Top gifts of the 1950s were under my childhood Christmas trees and are still around.  The wine-colored Scrabble box is taped together, but the small square tiles are just as they were almost seventy years ago.  My blue hula hoop is long gone, but my Grands sometimes spin the sparkly purple one I bought a few years back.

            Most girls of my generation had at least one Barbie, the 1959 top toy, and I remember being excited one Christmas when Barbie’s clothes were my favorite gifts. Yes, my Grands have dressed my Barbie with those clothes.

Fast forward to 2021’s top toy, a reversible octopus plushie that is happy on one side and angry on the other.  It won’t be under my Christmas tree, but yo-yos and books – those are gifts that my Grands would like.  Please don’t tell them those are old toys.

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Christmas Wish Lists and Shopping

Posted on December 8, 2021 by susanrray

When I was a kid and the Sears Roebuck Christmas catalog arrived in the mail, I took it to my bedroom.  I folded down page corners and circled dolls and clothes. That catalog was my wish list.

             I dreamed about the fancy dolls and wearing the cool looking clothes, but I was happy with flannel pajamas that Mom had made and a doll from the local hardware store.  I do remember one gift from Sears: a stiff blue nylon can-can slip that held my full-gathered skirts almost parallel to the ground. 

            A generation later, a friend and I bought Santa Claus gifts in October.  After we’d shopped locally and didn’t find everything we were certain would be on our children’s wish lists, we made a Nashville shopping trip.

            The gifts that Daughter and Son got during the 1980s are the story of their childhood years. Star Wars, Strawberry Shortcakes dolls, a Speak and Spell, walkie-talkies, basketballs, books, and a tape recorder. And because I thought clothes should be Christmas gifts, Tennessee Tech sweatshirts.  

            Another generation later, Christmas shopping overwhelms me.  A month ago, I told Husband that choosing gifts for our eight Grands was a monumental task and it threatened my Christmas joy.  He listened while I reminisced about the fun shopping days for our children and I wanted to get shopping done soon and I wish I knew something each Grand would like and I didn’t even know anyone’s size.  

            When I had asked for ideas, I wasn’t taken seriously. “Really, Gran? Christmas is a long time from now.  It’s not even Thanksgiving yet,” my Grands said.

            So, Husband, bless him, took charge.  He created a flyer and made sure it was posted on the refrigerators at our Grands’ homes.

            ‘Attention: Grands

            Gran and Pop request that you submit your Christmas wish lists by bedtime on Monday, November 22.  You may call, text, email, Facebook message, Facetime, or Zoom to forward your requests.’

            At the bottom of the page in tiny font, Husband wrote words that will forever tell the story of 2021. ‘Disclaimer:  Not responsible for supply chain issues, cargo ships stuck in the Panama Canal or off the coast of California, Georgia or Louisiana, sleepy or uncooperative elves, fat reindeer, weather conditions, overworked postal workers, forgetful UPS drivers, thrown reindeer shoes, boring knock-knock jokes, overcooked cranberry sauce, and any other conditions beyond our control including, but limited to, color selections, size availability, lighting conditions, burned out Christmas tree bulbs, and wrinkled wrapping paper.’

            We got lists.  Puzzles, books, electronics, Legos, fun socks, pajamas, and a veterinarian kit. And one money request for an after Christmas shopping trip. 

            Christmas shopping changed from mail order to toy and department stores to buying some gifts online, but I’m glad wish lists still include toys, books, and clothes. 

            And the excitement of seeing a wrapped package under a Christmas tree never changes.  Even for my teen-age Grand who sent a text with an online link and wrote, “Here’s my wish list!”

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Surprise Christmas Gifts!

Posted on December 23, 2020 by susanrray

If ever there was a Christmas to give surprise gifts, it’s this one.  Unexpected gifts that bring smiles and laughs and memories. 

            Neither Husband’s nor my family pulled pranks often, but we remember a few surprises, like the year Uncle B played a trick on his father-in-law, my grandfather.  Papa was one of the most honest and fair and no-nonsense people I’ve ever known.  When Mom shopped for shirts for his three sons-in-laws’ Christmas presents and then told Papa the cost of each, he would give her money, even as little as a dollar, to put in the pocket if a shirt cost less than the others. 

            Every Christmas Papa gave one-pound boxes of Paul’s Stick Candy, soft stick candy of many different flavors, and as a kid I thought he owned the candy company because his name was Paul.  Papa tucked a $20 bill under the top flap of the white cardboard box – fifty years ago that amount bought a brown paper bag full of groceries.

            Uncle B told everyone except Papa his plan.  When Uncle B opened his and Aunt Nell’s box of candy, he swapped the $20 bill for a $100 bill.  He waved that bill above his head and said, “Thank you, Paul!”  Papa’s chin dropped, his eyes grew big and he reached into his back pocket, pulled out his billfold and looked inside it. How could he have made such a mistake!  Everyone, even us young grandchildren, laughed.

            Papa’s look of astonishment changed to confusion, when Uncle B drew a breath and held up Papa’s $20 bill.  Now, decades later, we grandchildren still laugh about the look on Papa’s face.

            Husband’s dad, aka Grandfather, was shocked by a gift he received one Christmas.  He had no hint of what was inside a beautifully wrapped package, but he was prepared for a surprise because no name was written on the gift tag to show who gave it.  Grandfather’s children, in-laws, and grandchildren sat gathered in his and Grandmother’s living room, and only the giver knew what was in the package.  Young grandchildren sat close on the floor by Grandfather’s feet, and he took his own sweet time to open the mystery package.

            Grandfather laughed aloud when only he saw the gift:  an xx-large white cotton bra embellished with sequins and red ribbons.  Holding both straps, Grandfather held his gift high for all to see.  Little ones covered their faces; grown ones laughed until tears rolled.  And for many years, we laughed again because that decorated bra was often among the gifts under the Ray family Christmas tree.

            Have you ever gotten a pig’s tail for Christmas?  When Husband was young, his maternal grandfather and uncles traditionally killed hogs the week of Christmas so a fresh pig’s tale was often wrapped and under the Christmas tree for the Powell family Christmas gathering.

            I don’t have a pig’s tail, but there are some things around our house that will be surprise gifts. As we celebrate this holy day, let’s bring laughter to Christmas 2020.

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Shop at Home – Chapter 2

Posted on December 16, 2020 by susanrray

After reading my recent column about shopping at home, friends shared stories and agreed that I could share them here. 

 Five years ago, Jo found a newspaper from 1989 that had four-leaf clovers dried between its pages.  She remembered a day when her son Eli, then age 10, and his grandpa walked across the field between their homes.  Eli found 82 four-leaf clovers that day, and Jo had dried some of them in the newspaper that had been stored on a top closet shelf.  Jo cut an 8” x 10” section that showed the date from the paper.  She glued clovers around the paper’s edges and wrote a poem about that day when Eli and his grandpa were together.  Eli was 35 when he received the framed newspaper and poem, and he cried, as did all who watched him open his Christmas gift.  To make it an even more sentimental gift, Eli’s grandpa died in 1989.

            Delores shared that her mother writes a poem for her children’s birthdays and those saved poems are some of Delores’s most cherished gifts.  Recently, I found a picture of my granny holding my son when he was only six weeks old.  Jo’s and Delores’s gift ideasprompted me to write a short memory of Granny and mail it along with the picture to Son.  His immediate response and thank you give me the idea that a single picture with a short writing might be inside a few Christmas packages.

            Linda’s mother asked her brother and Linda to walk through her home and pick out the family pieces of antique furniture that they would like to have.  Last week, my friend Carol invited her only granddaughter to look through her jewelry and choose what she wanted.  I’m reminded of the day that my aunt took a ring off her finger and put it on mine. It was my grandma’s birthstone ring that had five stones:  one for each of my grandparents, my mother, and my two aunts.  Being the only surviving daughter, Aunt Doris wore the ring often.  That day she said, “It’s your turn to wear this ring.” 

            Friends also chimed in about regifting.  Nell said that her late step-mother thought she was the master re-gifter, but her gifts proved otherwise.  She gave a car vacuum with dirt inside the bag and a casserole dish with food stuck under the rim of the lid.  Her clothing gifts weren’t well received either:  a sweater with a speck of dried food on the front and a silk blouse with wrinkles where it had been tucked into a skirt waistline.

            One of the most legendary gifts that Nell’s step-mother gave was an evening clutch with theater stubs inside – not tickets, stubs.  This idea can be refined:  tickets or green folding money inside a new purse or wallet could be a really good gift.

            There are a at least two advantages of shopping at home:  you can wear pajamas and you’ll save money. Have fun shopping!  Only eight more days.

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