Ran Out of Xmas Stories, So Here's This...

As a conversation starter, I have asked others what was your best Christmas gift? The responses are pretty varied and not always about something silly expensive either.

I began to think over the years what great presents I got as a kid, teen and adult and a few stick out, other years I draw a complete blank.

5 years old: Lite Brite. To me this was magic. I also have a great memory of my Mom and I sitting in the dark, with her teaching me how to shove the pegs into the patterned paper that came with the set up.

6 years old? No clue.

7 years old? No clue.

8 years old? No clue...see a pattern?

9 years old? Still no clue.

10 years old. Ah! A shitload of WW2 Revel and Monogram plastic models of aircraft I could glue together. The funny thing, my Dad took half of them w/o my say so and sat at the kitchen table putting them together himself. I think he was reliving HIS childhood a bit there. To see a 44 year old man painstakingly glue models together and then, w/o knowing his son was looking, use his hand to fly them around the kitchen table like his own son would, was fun to see. My Dad didn't make any engine or machine gun noises though.

11 years old: My dad, thinking that my love of aviation was a key, got me one of those cable controlled P51 fighter planes. It was a real fuel powered plane you could fly. I tried getting the engine started but to no avail. The thing had to be charged with a battery, filled with fuel (kerosene) and you kept cranking the propeller till it “caught” and ran. My Dad realized my skinny 11 year old arms weren't cranking it fast enough so he tried, whereby he got it running and slit the shit out his fingers when the prop blade started running. This was then when toys were made out of REAL steel.

12 year old. I was on a mission since July. I had played around with a bb gun owned by a friend a block over and realized, I had to have one. I spent the rest of the year buttering up Dad and manipulating him as well as I could to get one. I did succeed at it. I never shot my eye out but did chip my front tooth on a ricochet that I hid from my Mom successfully for two weeks...then lied through that chipped tooth about how it got chipped. God forbid I let my parents know they were RIGHT. It wasn't a bad chip, but any deformation in a child's face will be immediately noticed by a MOM, no matter how small.

13? No clue.

14-15. Still no clue.

16 year of age was a major cutoff. This is when I found out getting clothes for Xmas was a great gift. As a kid, you'd get clothing but it was no fun at all. Socks? Underwear? Big Goddamn Deal. You still had to thank your Aunt Bertha for it anyway, even though you hated the gift. At 16 I received a gray Merino wool sweater and realized this: I didn't have to buy it! I got a free killer piece of clothing that I didn't have to buy. Christmas's became adult oriented now. Free clothing? Free gas cards? Sign me up!

16 was also the first year I learned to hate snow. I found out driving in it was a major pain in the ass.

17 on up..well, more adult gifts that I don't remember either.

The best gifts I ever gave? I can say a couple that I thought were hits right out of the park because I put thought into them, even though they weren't pricey at all.

One was a four page letter to a friend of why we were friends...a tell all, a signed confession of sorts explaining why I thought she was a great friend to have in the first place. That brought tears. Slammed that one out into the parking lot!

A second gift, to another girl, was when I found out about her love for a childhood doll she had lost when she was 17. She had said it was a favorite and saddened she threw it out because she thought she was “growing up” and didn't need to have old toys around anymore.

Luckily for me at the time, the internet was born and eBay was up and running. I found the doll, bought it and made a gift of it to her. It wasn't the exact one but still, the same box, same doll she got when she was 9. That stunned her when she opened it up.

Gift I Have Given Because I was too Lazy to Put Any Thought into Them.

Of course, my Mom took the brunt of that at times. When I was going to RIC, I was also working part time, had just finished up exams and was pressed for time. I swore I'd shop for those two when I got the chance. I did shop, late in the afternoon on Xmas eve.

My brother was easy, any six pack of the right gauge guitar strings, some effects pedals would work the charm. In order to do this because I knew shit about guitars, I had to kidnap his Strat and take it to the music store. At Ray Mullin's, a music store in downtown Pawtucket, I opened the case to show the salesman just what kind of strings it needed. The guy picks it up, stares and then says, “These are Gibson Humbucker pickups! A two coil and single! Who modified this guitar? Do you want to sell it? I can offer $1,300 right now!”

“Ummm..he reworked it...can I get some strings for it?...” I felt like I walked into a pawn shop, unknowingly carrying a Stradivarius violin and was about to be flim flammed.

My mother was tougher. She already had a lifetime supply of Lipton's Tea and Newport cigarettes, the two things she needed to make life happy. (Shit, I just thought of something pertaining to myself!

Never mind...)

Anyways, I was scouring the aisles in the old Apex store by 95 in Pawtucket when I found this interesting glass cut lantern you filled with scented oil. It did work, nice flame an all and spewed out enough perfumed stench to cover up cat piss. The store would close in 10 minutes and I bought it on the spot. My Mom opened it on Xmas morning and said..”Oh..this is nice.” Translation: “What the FUCK is this?”

I can't say my gifts to Mom were all horrible or dull. That prize goes to my brother who bought, w/o fail, each year, for years, the same $25 Cherry and Webb gift coin for her.