MY TWO BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

      Now tell me, can you name your two best Christmas presents? Well that may be a bit of a hard question. I've set the rules. So twist this question around if you like. 

     My two best Christmas presents were my children. Yes , they both arrived for Christmas.

     My children are adopted. When we decided to adopt we had to fill in a detailed application form and have a house inspection and a long interview. We were at the mercy of the bureaucrats. They told us we could be waiting for as much as two years if we were accepted as parents. With this happy news we carried on our lives and careers and put adoption in the back of our minds. The application was made in Sept.

    So on Dec. 21 one of the bureaucrats phoned and told the MM that they had a baby for us! Wow! We were not prepared at all. The MM was just getting ready to go on shift. She thought fast and asked for an extra day from the bureaucrat. The first phone call she made was to resign . She spent the next  day shopping as she had to buy everything needed for an infant. And she did get everything and the big day and trip came. 

    We were delighted to receive a baby boy who was about 8 weeks old. This little guy knew that something was going on and he knew that he was with different people. After a day or two he calmed down.

    So his sister? Almost the same thing. They phoned on the last day of school and would we come to Edmonton the next day. She was about 8 weeks old. 

    Okay we were ready we thought. The usual interview happened and then we were left alone with the baby to make a decision. Who is going to turn down an infant. She looked as she may have a deformity and we had been told she was a healthy infant . Things were reviewed and checked and found to be normal . 

    Off to home we went with a new daughter. Her shoulder straightened out in a day or two. Sad to say that she may have been left in a chilly area and was cold. 

    So there you have it...my two best Christmas presents. 

Bring Me Back a Present

     When I taught middle school I had a newspaper unit for one of the grades. We looked at all the parts of a daily paper starting with the header and ending with classified ads. We looked at headlines, first sentence of a story, editorials ..absolutely everything. The assignment was to make a scrapbook with about 10 different examples from the paper. The assignment was easy but it made the kids look through a newspaper. I killed a few birds with this stone. It got the kids reading and had them look at writing for a purpose. We did the crossword as a class and generally rooted through the whole paper. For a fine finale we took a field trip through a daily paper and saw how the paper was produced from start to finish.

I think I might need some new glasses

   I hope that some people found newspapers. I know the odd one is working for a newspaper but not likely from my newspaper unit.

   When  someone would tell me they were being taken out of school for a trip, I would look them in the eye and say, "You have to bring a present back for me!" A nervous distraught look would come over their face which said, "Is this guy for real?" I would give them a few seconds to be uncomfortable. The odd one would say ,"No way." Others might say, "Well , what do you want." Usually I got them off the hook and said , "Bring me back a newspaper." A look of relief  flooded across  their face and they enthusiastically said , "Oh sure!" I told them they didn't have to actually buy a newspaper. Their would be newspapers that they could pick up.

    So when they came back with their newspaper , I would make a big deal over the paper and we would briefly go through the paper and pass it around. Later on when they were going away they would ask me if I wanted a paper. Then they would come and say , "My Dad's going to Russia. Do you want a paper?" Some time later they would proudly come in with a paper. 

   I made a lot of mileage out of this gag. Quite a pile of newspapers built up over the years. Sadly there wasn't a lot of storage space so I had to clean out the closet from time to time. When I retired I disposed of all the newspapers that were left. Many memories went with the newspapers I collected. 

    "Bring me back a present" was a lot of fun.

Surprise From the Past

     We steadily go through stuff in the house trying to downsize. For nearly 50 years we have collected things and it is very surprising how much has accumulated.

     This last while we have been tackling book cases...a shelf at a time. I am instructed to go through and pick out what a I don't want. I can make a pretty big pile of "don't wants" in a hurry. My wife will go through a second time and choose ones she doesn't want to part with. I thought that I had thrown out all university texts years ago. There were still lots on the shelves and some of them weren't thrown out this time. 

    I did make some discoveries that were very surprising. I found about a dozen books that I had received as a little kid. Books that were Christmas presents and birthday presents. My Mom's sister was only 12  when I was born. She spoiled her nephews rotten and she still does today when she's 85 and her nephews are 73. Our Aunt gave us books for gifts. She found a series that we liked. Mom would read these books to us. Once we were all ready for bed we would crawl on Moms's bed. She would read and we were absolutely quiet . When about half of us had fallen asleep she would quit and that was bedtime.

    Like many people I left home right after high school. I did not have a permanent residence. Over the years the things I had as  a kid disappeared. Once I had settled down my Mom said one day, "These are the only things of yours that are left here." She gave me the books a I found the other day. My brothers established homes before I did and took things that they had as kids to their houses. Not much was left when I established roots.

     So the other day when I found these books it was like rediscovering a very ancient past. To say the least, these were books I didn't throw away.

The books were always neatly written in with a greeting. I anybody familiar with the Sugar Creek Gang series?

My 1950 birthday present.

In the country schools we would draw names and give that person a Christmas gift which was presented at the Christmas concert. Wesley was in the grade ahead of me,

Hans Brinker doesn't appear to have been a gift as there is no inscription in it. I read this a couple of times. As you see it's in pretty bad shape.

Sleep tight!

What in the World?

     Did you ever get the gift where you said,"What in the world is this thing?" I got such a gift this year and the puzzling thing was that came from  someone who is and excellent gift giver.

    So the box said, "Stereo speaker and something about ipod."  Now I like my ipod and the ear buds with it. I get to hear music the way I like it. It's clear and I can hear all parts of the music. Why would I want a speaker for my ipod?

The mysterious box

    So today I got around to opening the box and going through the material with the stereo speaker. The directions were clear except that you need more than trifocals to see the print. They must really want to conserve forests these days when they make the print so small. 

    I did well until I was to connect the ipod to the device . I took my cord to hook the ipod to the computer to plug into the stereo. Something's wrong here. These don't match! They're two female ends. So I thought oops somebody has sent me something that I don't have all the parts for. I checked a little further and then said, "Oh Ya. I plug the ipod into this device not a cord." After that everything worked and it was simple.

The gizmo beside the box

     It wasn't until I turned the device on and listened for a few minutes that it hit me what the purpose of the stereo speaker was for. So it allows you to listen to your music without being attached to the ear plug! I like to sit at the computer and listen to music but when I want to get up and go to another place in the house it's a small inconvenience to take off the ear phones.

     So my, "What in the world is this thing?" turned out to make sense after all.