I have many fond Christmas memories and one in particular….It had been a beautiful Christmas morning. Hubby and I managed to have a cup of coffee before the kids woke up. The tree was lit up with presents flowing from it like a rainbow. The kids had slept past six a.m. The little darlings had actually managed to read the tags on their gifts so they could tell which present had come from whom. We had gone to church together as a family. The financial impact hadn’t been too bad. Sitting silently in the heater room was a pile of boxes. All of the original boxes had been saved. This is the most important part of Christmas.
I had always been led to believe that Christmas was about the birth of the baby Jesus. I was wrong. My husband knew. “Save all the original boxes” is his mantra. We have eighteen years of original boxes from toys, appliances, furniture, and household items. Most of those items have been used and thrown away but I still have the original boxes. “You never know.” Came up frequently in conversations about original boxes.
My oldest son had gotten a CD player for Christmas. The box was huge. Fortunately for me I could fit a lot of original boxes inside the CD box. I tried to sneak this box into the recycling bin but the original box husband spotted my indiscretion and retrieved it. “Look what I found in the recycle bin. An original box.” He said grinning as if he had just found the mother lode. The CD Player had been removed, set up and was working just fine so I mistakenly tried to liberate the box. A few weeks after Christmas the player started making a grinding noise when it was opened. The original box husband retrieved the original box and proudly repacked the player and took it back to the store.
The saleslady in the store was much older than us. She was very nice in my Mothers kind of way. She opened the box. She stood there in a state of shock with her eyes bulging out of her head. Not only had original box husband put the player back in the original box, he had saved the original Styrofoam packing thingies. This thing was packed neater than when we took it out of the box. She broke into a huge grin. She couldn’t believe that he had packed it so thoroughly and from such a young man. The compliments came fast and furious. He had found an original box woman. Her husband of fifty years was not an original box husband. He was a “lets get this stuff out of here husband.” He was my kind of guy.
I have every original box from all of my children’s toys. That comes out to two children, eight thousand presents from their grandparents, a few from us, five thousand from their aunts and uncles multiplied by sixteen years. I have them all. The other day I decided to straighten the original box room. My husband keeps calling this room the attic, but I know better. I tried to liberate a few of the original boxes while hubby was at work. Wrong! He found them out in the recycle bin when he came home. I tried to explain that they needed to be with regular boxes doing what all of the other boxes were doing. No box wants to be ostracized for being different. He claimed that the boxes would be fine hanging out in the original box room with all of the other original boxes. They went back.
Then a few months after Christmas, I turned on the television and there was a show about collecting. The host was appraising items for the guests. I watched him give out a few estimates and then it happened. This woman had an old toy. It was maybe ten or fifteen years old. He went on and on about the toy and how it had been part of a real trend in toys. He commented on the value and how it was a shame that she didn’t have the original box. She did. The excitement was palpable. It added value to her toy. Substantial value. Original box husband was transfixed. I could see the wheels turning in his head. Eight thousand toys time twenty years, all with the original boxes. He ran to the original box room with breakneck speed, gathered up all of the original boxes for the toys that the kids no longer play with, and packed those toys with the precision and speed of Santa’s elves.
The transformation was complete. As he stood counting the money from the antique store he had become LET’S GO ON VACATION HUSBAND. I love a renaissance man.
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
My Favorite Christmas
I love Christmas. The real Christmas, not the gotta buy stuff for Christmas. Mostly I just like the way it can make people feel. You know the whole ‘Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus” feeling. I love the memories it creates. It just changes humanity. We all have our favorite Christmas memories.
My parents would not let us have a dog. They were both city kids and didn’t want a dog. We had a fifty-two gallon fish tank once but my folks moved it to their office when my sister was a baby. They were afraid that she would pull it down on herself. They took it to their office where some kid turned up the heater and the fish were all boiled to death over a weekend. The smell that was wafting thru the office was best described as requires professional help to eliminate. My parents were feeling the bad karma from making us get rid of the fish and now the fish are dead and the fact that we couldn’t have a dog so they compromised and let us get a cat.
I found the kitten. I brought her home one day and she became ours. She was a black cat with a white belly. Her name was BeeBee. Christmas came around and the tree went up. We always had a flocked tree. Mom liked white trees. It was in the bay window in our living room. The nativity scene went on the console television. Dad had made the stable to fit exactly over the television. The bottom of the manger was filled with sand. The figurines were all made by my Grandmother who made ceramics and had her own kiln. They were larger than normal and hand painted. I have them in my home. The stage for a Rockwell Christmas picture was set.
My Father had made the traditional trek into the attic to bring down the lights and balls. This was accompanied by the traditional mumbling under the breath. Followed shortly by the traditional screaming at my brother to string out the lights slowly and not to kink the cord. If one light bulb was out the entire strand was out. There was no in between and more likely than not they were out. This of course started the traditional cursing of the lights. It is a custom that was held in many homes across the country. In order to figure out which bulb was out the screamer would start with the first bulb and replace it. If the strand lit up the problem was solved. If not, the screamer would continue until eventually finding the bulb. Once all of the strands were lit the traditional screaming of the lights ended. The tree decoration process continues with the ball placement. This is another critical part of the process. It is imperative to place the big balls on the edges of the branch. Everyone knows that if you place the incorrectly the tree will look bad, people will talk and you will be asked to leave the neighborhood. The joy of the preparation is finished off by the placing of the tinsel, which as everyone knows has to be placed on one strand at a time. There is to be no clumping or else. I’m not sure where the tradition started to place shredded foil on the Christmas tree came from but it arrived at my house. It matched the sponged gold wallpaper. It was the 70’s after all.
The next day was Christmas Eve and we were all excited. We went to bed early and were anxiously waiting for Christmas Eve. My parents always had a party on Christmas Eve and the house was full of excitement. We came down that morning and the smell was unmistakable. It smelled of poop. My sister was a baby then and still in diapers so naturally we checked her but it wasn’t her. We knew it had to be the cat. The cat was sitting on the couch and there was no poop that we could see. We emptied the litter box. The litter box was in the basement. No one really believed that the poop smell had wafted upstairs thru closed doors. We scoured the house. Nothing. Mom looked at the cat who was still sitting on the end of the couch. She was walking over to the cat and passed the manger. She looked down at the nativity scene and saw it. The poop was in the manger. The blood curdling scream that followed was one for the record books. It brought my Father running, mom pointing at the cat and as Dad turned around and bent down to grab the cat, the cat jumped over his head and headed to the chair across from the couch. Dad dove after her and she jumped into the tree. Dad is now trying to catch her before she hits the tree. He is airborne vertical, the cat lands in the tree, the tree falls over on Dad, Mom is shrieking and the cat scurries off. My brother and I are laughing. It was I love Lucy in my living room. Dad got out from under the tree. He put the tree upright to survey the damage. There were a few balls that were broken. The lights made it thru and magically all of the tinsel was in place except for a few pieces that the cat took with her. After the tree fiasco Dad put screws in the wall behind the tree and wired the tree to the screws. That tree, and the trees for many years to come were going nowhere. I couldn’t tell you what I got for Christmas that year but laughter and memories were the best part of it.
My parents would not let us have a dog. They were both city kids and didn’t want a dog. We had a fifty-two gallon fish tank once but my folks moved it to their office when my sister was a baby. They were afraid that she would pull it down on herself. They took it to their office where some kid turned up the heater and the fish were all boiled to death over a weekend. The smell that was wafting thru the office was best described as requires professional help to eliminate. My parents were feeling the bad karma from making us get rid of the fish and now the fish are dead and the fact that we couldn’t have a dog so they compromised and let us get a cat.
I found the kitten. I brought her home one day and she became ours. She was a black cat with a white belly. Her name was BeeBee. Christmas came around and the tree went up. We always had a flocked tree. Mom liked white trees. It was in the bay window in our living room. The nativity scene went on the console television. Dad had made the stable to fit exactly over the television. The bottom of the manger was filled with sand. The figurines were all made by my Grandmother who made ceramics and had her own kiln. They were larger than normal and hand painted. I have them in my home. The stage for a Rockwell Christmas picture was set.
My Father had made the traditional trek into the attic to bring down the lights and balls. This was accompanied by the traditional mumbling under the breath. Followed shortly by the traditional screaming at my brother to string out the lights slowly and not to kink the cord. If one light bulb was out the entire strand was out. There was no in between and more likely than not they were out. This of course started the traditional cursing of the lights. It is a custom that was held in many homes across the country. In order to figure out which bulb was out the screamer would start with the first bulb and replace it. If the strand lit up the problem was solved. If not, the screamer would continue until eventually finding the bulb. Once all of the strands were lit the traditional screaming of the lights ended. The tree decoration process continues with the ball placement. This is another critical part of the process. It is imperative to place the big balls on the edges of the branch. Everyone knows that if you place the incorrectly the tree will look bad, people will talk and you will be asked to leave the neighborhood. The joy of the preparation is finished off by the placing of the tinsel, which as everyone knows has to be placed on one strand at a time. There is to be no clumping or else. I’m not sure where the tradition started to place shredded foil on the Christmas tree came from but it arrived at my house. It matched the sponged gold wallpaper. It was the 70’s after all.
The next day was Christmas Eve and we were all excited. We went to bed early and were anxiously waiting for Christmas Eve. My parents always had a party on Christmas Eve and the house was full of excitement. We came down that morning and the smell was unmistakable. It smelled of poop. My sister was a baby then and still in diapers so naturally we checked her but it wasn’t her. We knew it had to be the cat. The cat was sitting on the couch and there was no poop that we could see. We emptied the litter box. The litter box was in the basement. No one really believed that the poop smell had wafted upstairs thru closed doors. We scoured the house. Nothing. Mom looked at the cat who was still sitting on the end of the couch. She was walking over to the cat and passed the manger. She looked down at the nativity scene and saw it. The poop was in the manger. The blood curdling scream that followed was one for the record books. It brought my Father running, mom pointing at the cat and as Dad turned around and bent down to grab the cat, the cat jumped over his head and headed to the chair across from the couch. Dad dove after her and she jumped into the tree. Dad is now trying to catch her before she hits the tree. He is airborne vertical, the cat lands in the tree, the tree falls over on Dad, Mom is shrieking and the cat scurries off. My brother and I are laughing. It was I love Lucy in my living room. Dad got out from under the tree. He put the tree upright to survey the damage. There were a few balls that were broken. The lights made it thru and magically all of the tinsel was in place except for a few pieces that the cat took with her. After the tree fiasco Dad put screws in the wall behind the tree and wired the tree to the screws. That tree, and the trees for many years to come were going nowhere. I couldn’t tell you what I got for Christmas that year but laughter and memories were the best part of it.
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