Magi(c) Gifts

One of my favorite Christmas stories growing up was O.Henry's "Gift of the Magi".  It's a turn of the (Nineteenth) century story about a young couple, deeply in love, who are too poor to afford to buy each other a Christmas gift.  So they each take their most treasured object and sell it to buy their beloved a gift that's fit for the other.  Except their treasured objects are, of course, what the other one had sold in order to buy the gift.  She cuts her beautiful long hair (presumably for someone to make into hair jewelry, which was all the rage in the late Nineteenth Century but which never fails to 'cweep me out!' whenever I've seen a piece of it, but  pardon me, THAT'S another story) to buy him a fob for his beautiful pocket watch.  And he, poor thing, sells his beloved pocket watch to buy her a set of ivory combs for her luscious long hair.  Anyway, I love that story because to me it really hits the nail on Giving this time of year.  You try so hard to find something that will be "just the Thing!" that your special someone will want.

And yes, it is what the Gift of the Magi was:  the kings who travelled to bring Baby Jesus the precious items when he was born.  But it's also magic gifts when one connects with those special gifts.  Let me tell you about one of them that happened to me: the recipient.

At the end of the Christmas season 2002, Bill and I paid a visit to our local Harley dealer who always had a good sale going on between Christmas Day and New Year's.  All that expensive Harley ware would be marked down fifty, sixty sometimes even seventy-five percent.  You didn't want to miss that sale!  That year, I found a set of four Harley old-fashion glasses, painted with Christmas trees and Harley logos, marked down from twenty dollars for the set to only five.  I jumped on them and brought them home.  Since it was no longer Christmas, I put them away with the Christmas stuff until the next year.

Christmas 2003 when I was getting things out, here were those gorgeous Christmas Harley glasses.  I hesitated to open them up and put them out.  Bill and I had given up drinking hard liquor seven years before and rarely had a use for something like these.  But still... they were Harley glasses!  I might have guests over.  I could serve Seven-Up in them, without liquor, couldn't I?  They were an indulgence I wanted, nay...Desired!  But... an indulgence just the same.  I should use them as an extra Christmas gift and save some hard earned money.  I vacillated over that unopened box of glasses for a couple of weeks.  As Christmas got closer, my shopping money dwindled away and I still had empty spaces on my gift list.  Yep, you guessed it:  two days before Christmas, I reluctantly wrapped up the beautiful glasses in their thick Harley-logo-ed box and gave them to a couple who rode motorcycles, only not Harleys.  I reasoned that if they couldn't afford to ride a Harley, at least they could enjoy drinking out of one.  And besides, they were beautiful Christmas glasses.  Maybe they could overlook the Harley part of the Christmas decoration.

Christmas 2004 my grandson Charley started kindergarten.  His teacher was a Harley rider and thought it was hilarious that Charley's grandma and grandpa rode Harleys and were active in the local HOG club.  She was always teasing me about it.  The school held an annual Christmas Bazaar where parents made gifts or gave 'lightly used' or even regifted items so that the students can shop and buy their Christmas treasures at a reduced price.  They've done it for years and the prices range between ten cents and five dollars.  My own boys loved the Bazaar and Tad made it a point to never spend more than a dollar for the seven or eight presents he bought each year.  One year, he even managed to only spend sixty-five cents on his  Christmas list.  His brother, Willy, (Charley's dad) gave him a hard time over his 'cheapness', opting to spend upward of three dollars and eighty cents on his gifts.  Either way, our family loved the Bazaar and I was hoping that Charley would get just as big a bang out of his shopping as his dad and uncle had years before.

On Christmas Day, Charley brought me a big clumsily wrapped package and waited at my knee while I carefully unwrapped it.  What would it be?  A picture he'd drawn?  A mug he had made?  No.  What I found inside was the thick padded Harley box with the four Christmas old-fashioned glasses inside that I had given the motorcycle riding couple the previous year.  Evidently, they had re-gifted to the Christmas Bazaar and Charley had seen they were what his Mackey and Boppy really wanted.  And of course, he was right:  It was PERFECT!

What's In A Name?

I ran down to the WalMart in Mesa to gather a bunch of Christmas goodies.  One thing I wanted to find was a small artificial tree.  We've got one for the Church Street house, but I wanted to get one for the Hill Street house too, so it wouldn't feel left out.  (Listen:  you have to keep those spirits happy.  When we returned home, after only having been gone for a week, Somebody-Spirit-Wise had been smoking and moping in the Hill Street house.  I guess THEY thought a week was too long to be alone!)  Anyway, in hopes of keeping the Spirit-Presence happy, I went tree shopping at Wal-Mart.  But I didn't want to spend Big Bucks on a second tree, so I thought Wal-Mart should be able to help me.

Well, in their artificial tree selections (all made in China, of course, where any self respecting artificial tree is made!), I found a six foot imitation fir.  The brand of this tree?  (I kid you not!)  "This Will Do!"  Now, isn't that an apt name for a sensibly priced six foot Christmas tree to be sold in the dark days of this recession?  For twenty bucks, no less.  Yessir, I'll take that one... the "This Will Do!" tree.  It's cheap, it's big enough and I'll still have money leftover to buy the kids some toys.  Definitely, "This Will Do!" tree for me.

So now, that got me to thinking.  Maybe next year, if they want to market it one step farther, they will be selling a tree (artificial of course, so it can be used year after year), this one all lit up with colored bulbs and darn it, let's include all the ornaments too and of course the tree stand and we'll call it (ummmmm....) the "Git 'er Done Tree!" 

Mincemeat Connoisseur

Bill and I drove home last week for a short Christmas visit with our family and friends.  On Sunday night, we had a big dinner for our sons and their families and I made sure there was plenty of dessert. (What's Christmas without sweets?)  I'd made two kinds of fudge and toffee and a carrot cake, iced gingerbread and sugar cookies and a plate of mincemeat tarts.  I let the little boys choose what they wanted to eat.

Seven-year-old Sage loaded up his plate with a couple of tarts and a wedge of cake.  I looked at the heaping plate dubiously.  "Are you sure you'll eat all of that?  Those are mincemeat, you know."

Sage picked up a tart and grinned, licking his lips.  "I KNOW it is!  I LOVE mincemeat!"

"Really?"  I still didn't believe him.  It was from a batch of mincemeat I'd found in the freezer I'd made two years ago.  And rich as it is, mincemeat has the flavor a kid might not like, let alone its powerful spiciness.  But then, Sage is a kid who has highly developed taste buds.  He likes spicy food and had just polished off a Christmas tamale, rubbing his stomach in appreciation but calling for a glass of water as he admitted, "It's a little spice-y!"

"So go ahead, Sage.  Enjoy your tarts," I said, as I watched four-year-old Ronnie chow down onto a lividly green frosted Christmas tree sugar cooky. 

They disappeared into his mouth, one after the other and Sage grinned again, letting Grandma know that there was nothing he couldn't eat.  Good for him!

A bit later, I came back over to the table to find him dawdling over the piece of carrot cake that remained on his plate.  "You take more than you can eat?" I asked.

"Oh no!  I'm going to eat this," he assured me.  His fingers worked at something in the cake and he picked it off and laid it to the side. 

I studied his now mangled piece of carrot cake.  A stack of raisins lay to the side of the buttercream and cake on his plate.  "What are you doing?"

"Oh, it's these raisins, Grandma!  I can't eat them!  I hate raisins.  I never eat them.  So I'm taking them out."  He resumed his task stoicly.

I shook my head.  Should I tell the now finicky eater that the mincemeat comprises three kinds of raisins, dark, sultans and currants?  And that he'd just chomped them down and declared them delicious?  Nope!  Let him find out later.