CONWAY — My Christmas tree is down, the Santa collection is packed away, but I have some good memories, along with the 8 pounds I gained over the holiday.
Some Christmases are just better than others. This year, my brother and I agreed, was a good one. That meant the presents were a hit, and nobody in the family really wanted to hit each other over the weekend.
Notes on Christmas 2010:
• Most unusual gift — It was probably a tie between the coconut bra I put in my husband’s stocking, which he wore until we made him take it off (he’s set for the next Jimmy Buffett concert), and the energy drinks called Bawls my mother bought my son — “liquid gold,” she called them because of the price.
• Oldest gifts — While in New York this summer, I bought my son a 1935 book, signed by the author, about hunting and preservation of land. The cover is tattered, and the handwritten ink inscription is in that wonderful cursive. He loved it. My sister-in-law bought him vintage hunting magazines from 1940 and 1941, and I bought my brother a framed cover of a golf magazine from the ’30s, with a golfer playing as he smokes a pipe.
• Gift that produced the most guilt — I got a Kindle from my brother and sister-in-law. I love, love, love books. I love the smell and the feel and the look of books. But I can’t cram another book or magazine into my house without showing up on one of those hoarder shows. I downloaded a book by Ann Rule, but I haven’t read it yet. I think I’m going to like this thing (there was that pang of guilt again).
• Most expensive gift for its size — This is a tie between my mother’s earrings, which really weren’t that expensive considering the brand and that they’re a pair, and the tiny tubes of discontinued Clinique eye shadow I bought on eBay for my sister-in-law and mother. You can’t really put a price on beauty, though.
• Most traded gift — In addition to other gifts, my husband and I picked out identical house shoes for our fathers. It would have been nice if either of us had known our fathers’ shoe sizes. Neither pair fit. But, the pair that didn’t fit my father-in-law fit my husband. So he kept them — until my dad’s house shoes didn’t fit, and he needed the ones we bought my father-in-law. So I took them from my husband and mailed them to my dad.
My mother scolded me and said she’d buy Dad new ones. I told her to let Dad keep them, because I bought MY husband new ones. Really? Major League Baseball doesn’t have this much trouble making trades.
• Hottest presents — That would be the ones my dad burned. My mother had empty boxes sitting by the front door before Christmas. She had presents to give a little boy she baby-sits that were leaned up against the wall in the vicinity of the door. Dad took it all to his burn pile. It cost about $75 to replace the gifts. Luckily, I realized the massage gift certificate my husband had given me was missing before the bags of wrapping paper were taken to the trash, and my husband rescued it.
I try to record some of these memories so I won’t lose them. The 8 pounds is gonna be a little harder.