Five Favorite Gifts

Zorra at Red Heeler Ranch tagged me for the present meme that's going around. To further procrastinate today, I'll do it!

Name five of your favorite all time gifts, either given or gotten.

1. Christmas 1955: A cookie jar for my mother. Before my father left to go overseas, he took me shopping for my mother. I chose a cookie jar. After he left, but before Christmas, I was so excited about it that I kept asking my mother to open it. Finally, one evening (maybe Christmas Eve) I unwrapped it for her myself, since she wouldn’t do it. I was so excited to give it to her!

2. Christmas 1957: The beautiful high-heeled doll I’d been wanting, dressed in a white bridal gown. Connected with this, I discovered the box containing her in my parents’ closet weeks before Christmas. So she also symbolized confirmation that my parents were Santa Claus. I never told them I’d found her until I was much, much older.

3. All my married Christmases: Husband CB hides a little present in the Christmas tree, which is always the last present for me to open. It's usually a lovely piece of jewelry. I think the idea comes from those "Santa Mouse" Christmas stories, but maybe that's only synchronicity with them. He and AE also have given me beautiful Nativity scenes. One of the most beautiful is a large raku one from Africa.
   
   

4. My birthday 1992: Picture album of pictures of my mother. My mother had died in July, and the next month we’d moved from RI to NJ. Husband CB and the children organized pictures of my mother, especially with the children, into a picture album. It meant so much to me. (And still does.)
   

5. Fall 1996: Blonde cocker spaniel puppy. AE was 14 ½ and was an angry teenager. She kept her door locked and would not allow us into her room. One day she asked me to come into her room and there was a little blonde cocker spaniel puppy on her bed! AE had bought this beautiful puppy for me out of her own money as a complete surprise. She wanted to name her “Thorin Oakenshield,” and I thought I compromised by giving the puppy the Scottish last name of my mother’s mother, whom AE was named for—“Baillie.” For years, AE continued to call her “Thorin,” but she remains Baillie to this day. I’ll never forget that day AE gave me Baillie.

I tag Katherine, Fran, PS, and Garten.