Thinking about Christmas presents reminded me of a story my mother tells. My grandfather was a coal miner and Mom grew up in coal camps in Kentucky and West Virginia. When she was young, she was a terrible tomboy, the one where the neighborhood kids would come to the window and holler for her to come out and play sports with them instead of her brothers.
One year, she wanted a football for Christmas. Oh no, her parents said, little girls don't need footballs. Never mind that she was a regular on the neighborhood teams. She was also the girl who beat everyone at marbles, playing "keeps" too, and who had to sneak upstairs with her booty and hide them before my grandmother caught her and made her give the kids their marbles back.
Anyway, Christmas came and someone from the camp played Santa for the kids, going house to house and delivering gifts on Christmas Eve. Of course she and her siblings were delighted to see him until he pulled out a doll from his pack and presented it to her. A doll? She didn't want a doll! She wanted a football!
Of course, she let it be known that Santa had got it all wrong. And Santa put the doll back into his pack and left her with no present at all. Later, the guy who played Santa returned the doll to my grandmother, who put it on mom's bed. It sat there for a long time. And was never played with.
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2 comments:
This story made me smile. Poor girl. I was the same. I wanted a GI Joe for Christmas and got Barbie. Not at all the same.
...I remember wanting a "Davey Crockett" coonskin cap[Disney] when I was a kid... of course, my brother got the hat... and the years, the "book of Life Savers", and the football...and all the cool stuff...
and I got a "jailer's key ring"[I had no keys...] frilly underpants [I refused to wear] or some other useless,"girly" thing that I hated...
and people wonder why the holidays are depressing...
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