A Christmas Tale

I heard one of the best children's tale of Christmas past yesterday while visiting with some of our congregation.  I am paraphrasing it for brevity and omitting the names.  The momma reads my blog so she will recognize this delightful tale.  "It seems that when the children were young times were tough.   They only had one vehicle yet, this young mother would walk them to town and they would do things.  One of them was looking at the toys at the dime store.  At this particular dime store there were loads of the little army men and their accessories.  The little boy wanted an army tank for Christmas.  When Christmas time rolled around he got many gifts....but no tank.  Later that day they went to a neighbors house and lo and behold the neighbor boy had gotten "the tank."  My friend's son went to the little boy and told him he had to give the tank to him because Santa had left it at the wrong house."  Don't you just love it.  The innocence of children at Christmas.  My second tale is also of days when times were tough.  The father made minimum wage and I think it was around 1.90 an hour.  Christmas rolled around and there was not a whole lot of money to be blown on toys.  The mom was a thrifty shopper and managed to get several gifts by shaving money off her grocery money.  The little girl in this story wanted Barbie everything.  Santa brought her a couple of outfits, some accessories, a pool set( not Mattel, but a cheaper replica),some necessities, and something special.  The children of the house had bulging stockings full of fruit, nuts, candy canes, and a small prize.  Later in the day the little family went to be with extended family to celebrate the day and daughter of one of the cousins, who was the same age, had also asked for Barbie everything.....only she got it.  The little girl with the fake pool ensemble could not understand the difference in gifts.  Wanting to help the mom finally told her that parents paid Santa throughout the year.   for the gifts and the little girl was fine with that.  Several hours later she told her parents that she wanted her daddy to get a better job so they could give Santa more money next year so she could have a Barbie Dream House.  Ah kids.  My last two tales I am telling on myself.  I too wanted Barbie stuff one year.  Yeah...I was young when Barbie came on the scene.  I wanted Barbie clothes....lots of them for my bubble hair cut Barbie.  I only had one....at the time.  My parents were firm believers in one big gift, on medium sized, and a couple of small gifts.  When I woke up Christmas morning there was a Midge doll (She was Barbie's friend) and tons of Barbie clothes.  They weren't in the pretty pink boxes that the store bought clothes came in....but they were perfect replica's of those.  The key word here was replica's.  I was almost embarrassed to show them to my friend, Carol.  She got Barbie clothes in a box.  I have realized as a parent and adult how selfish I was....and how much I hurt my mom and Aunt Mae Belle with my embarrassment.  Each one of those outfits were made with love and after I went to bed each night the two ladies got out their sewing machines and made all those wonderful little outfits....and believe me sewing Barbie clothes is not easy.  I had a black velvet evening coat with a diamond clasp at the neck, a fur lines red-velvet skating outfit, many dresses, many formals, and they had the accessories for all of it.  All in all I had over 50 changes of clothes.  They even made little under garments.  When my friends came to play they actually fought over my stuff because months after Christmas my clothes were still intact and theirs were not.  What love that was.  Thanks Mom and Aunt Mae Belle.  My last tale is about our poor year.  My dad had been out of work for a while.  He had a terrible kidney problem and was unable to work.  I wanted a guitar, skateboard, and skimboard for Christmas.  My dad would work during the day while I was at school an when he was not hurting....and he took an old busted guitar my grandfather had given him.....fixed it....painted it electric blue with a pink lightening bolt down the face, he took an old pair or metal wheel skates and made me a skateboard (electric blue with a pink lightening bolt), and made me a skim board out of a piece of our hurricane storm window boards...electric blue with a pink lightening bolt.  I was delighted!  I was old enough by then to know my dad had made these for me....and old enough to know what it cost him to sit up and make them.  As a child....no matter what....I have wonderful Christmas memories.  Do you have a special one?  Tell me about it in a comment.  I would love some bloggy Christmas love today.  Happy Christmas Eve Eve Eve.