This post is another repeat, one I usually re-post every year. I’ve made a couple of updates to ages and gifts.
The Secret Sam was my favorite Christmas present as a child. I still have it, and I will keep it, or perhaps pass it on to a grandchild. Oh, how I was excited and hoping the year I asked for my own Secret Sam. My mother told me it was a boy’s toy, but I was never a Barbie doll girl.
That was my spy year, my year of intrepid adventures around the neighborhood. It was one of my last Christmases as a child, I think, wanting toys and dreaming of adventures. Not too many years later, perhaps even the next one, my Christmas gifts would be stereos and albums, bell bottom jeans and paisley print turtlenecks.
Perhaps that is why the memory of it is such a treasure to me.
This year my grandchildren will be blessed with the breathless anticipation of what might be under the tree Christmas morning. They will be late to bed, too excited to sleep easily, and early to rise, rushing to the living room in all the excitement and wonder a child can have.
They are being taught the real reason for Christmas, and they will have opened the last flap on the Advent calendar the day before, they will place Jesus in the manger on Christmas morning, and some of them will have caught snippets of the Christmas story, perhaps even at Midnight Mass, but most are still too young to really understand the Biblical readings.
They have a book here at my house that unfolds into the journey to Bethlehem, and all the figures are there to travel or meet Mary and Joseph along the way. We read stories, we sing songs, we watch videos.
Together we have baked cookies and breads and made treats, and we have given them away. One granddaughter talks about Jesus and Mary and Joseph as if she is speaking of beloved family members who have gone on an exciting trip. She loves moving the nativity figures closer to the stable as Christmas approaches.
She is nine years old this year, and half the gifts she has asked for are toys, but the other half consists of cooking classes and more grown up gifts. Last year her gifts included lots of cooking paraphernalia. She’s been making biscuits, breads, and cookies with me since she could stand in a chair, and now she wants to learn to cook on her own, more things than just breads.
This tells me her childhood days are beginning that wonderful, terrible transition into her preteen and maturing years. That fills me with joy as I see the wonder and potential in her, all the gifts and innocence she has to offer to the world. But as her grandmother, oh, how I’m going to miss my little girl, the first grandchild God gave to us.
We now have eight grandchildren, and two of them are older than her, some of them having come into our family through marriage. The youngest is three, probably my favorite year to get to spend Christmas with a child. This year I’ll enjoy as much of his wonder and excitement as I can. Note: he’s now four.
I want to help nurture faith, hope, and love, generosity, joy, as well as create memories and enjoy the anticipation. I want to see Christmas through the eyes of happy children who see so clearly the joy, the promise, and the simpleness of it all.
Most of all, I want to share the feelings, the very same feelings of a child who exclaims “I love Jesus!” and means it with all their heart.
May your Christmas Eve be blessed with warmth and hope and family and stockings that will soon be full, a house filled with scents of the season, and the anticipation of the birth of our Savior.
I pray for those who can’t be home, especially our service men and women, all those who work to keep us safe and healthy, and those who just can’t be home with loved ones. I pray for those who are alone in the world, for children who won’t have a joyful and warm and safe Christmas.
I pray for those who are suffering and isolated because of the pandemic, and for families separated because of illness or quarantine.
I pray for the world to share the joy and peace of the season. God bless us every one.
This is not a political post. Please limit your comments accordingly, and allow us to enjoy some Christmas fun and cheer.
Thanks for sharing the joy. Merry Christmas to all.
I wanted that awesome toy ( never got it) maybe this year!!! Merry Christmas to all the Treepers!!!
Thank You Ma’am. And Merry Christmas to All!
Thank you for that beautiful post. Merry Christmas!
Thank you,
What a terrific start to the day.
Cheers!
Have a Blessed Merry Christmas with your family. Thank you for sharing them with us.
Thank you for the brightness you bring to me.
I can remember a few huge gift years and the fervor around them:
Atari (the 2600). Simon. “Laser” guns (which NEVER worked, despite being re-released or ‘updated’ every Christmas or two). Nintendo (aka the return of Atari panic, though it was better and harder to find).
For me, I think the best one was: A “Big Wheel”. Replete with hand-brake… for a powerslide!!!
🙂
Got the Evel Kneivel motorcycle toy must have been around 1973. That was a good one.
He came with a chopper and a white suit with a flag-parachute or something, didn’t he?
That’s it!!
I rode my big wheel until the front plastic wheel was worn into two disks, with no flat contact patch. I enjoyed many a powerslide.
Cheers.
You and me both 🙂 Cheers, have a MERRY Christmas!
Both my children had big wheels and enjoyed them but they will forever be in my memory as the little boy next-door, around four years old, was tearing up the middle of the street in his with his mother chasing him screaming at him to get the heck home he just kept looking back and going faster and faster. It was quite a sight.
“Most of all, I want to share the feelings, the very same feelings of a child who exclaims “I love Jesus!” and means it with all their heart.”
A beautiful post …. I have little great-nieces, 3 & 5 and seeing the wonder of Christmas & celebrating the birth of Jesus through their still-innocent eyes & simple understandings is something I cherish.
A Blessed Christmas to all ….. ~Es
Menagerie prancing about in her bell bottom jeans imagining shes the second coming of Emma Peel
Be still, my beating heart
Merry Christmas to all the Treepers and may your homes and hearts be filled with Love, Joy, and Peace.
You, too BK. By the way (points), you’ve got something hanging, there… left channel. Kleenex?
Fun to see this video again and to read your post. Have a very Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones!
My kids are teenagers now, they were so much easier to shop for when they were little. My favorite Christmas is back when they were both under 10. I did all the Christmas shopping that year in a single trip to Walmart, making sure to get an equal number of comparable type presents for each. A “big toy”, several small toys, a new set of cartoon character bedsheets.
At the checkout line there was a display of Kung Zhu hamsters. There are mechanical furry toys with wheels that briefly reverse when they run into an obstacle. They come with armor so kids can crash them into each other for battles. Purely an afterthought, I grabbed one for each child.
Those Kung Zhu hamsters were the favorite gift that year. They kept them for years. You never know.
Haha. Man, your comment made me remember:
Underoos!! I had a set of Batman ones I wore til my folks threw them out 😉
Merry Christmas to you, and bless you for that fine story. Such thoughts are a much-needed antidote to the foolishness permeating the world these days.
Yep, I never knew this existed until just a few years ago. TONKA toys and MAJOR MATT MASON were what I mostly got. Some G.I. Joe action figures. Here’s another one I even knew existed growing up. Anyone recognize the kid? –
Kirt Russell?
Russell was already planning his Escape from LA!
Looks like him to me …🇺🇸💪❤️👍🤣
Absolutely!! His life span and mine are almost identical. I grew up watching him mature as an actor. Seems to be a good person.
Arthur: That TV commercial appears to have been shot above the 405 Freeway, in Sepulveda Pass.
Wow! There’s one I almost forgot! I had Matt Mason, his 2 buddies, the lunar lander and those funny Rover things… Loved those, but mostly because of the time it allowed me to share with my brother. Miss those days. Merry Christmas all!
BEST CHRISTMAS AD EVER!
WOW! What an awesome Christmas Commercial Commercial – Holiday Ride | Chevrolet
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2021/12/wow-what-awesome-christmas-commercial.html
That was wonderful! Thanks for sharing.
My mascara is running down my face for some reason.
My oldest will be four in a couple of weeks, the middle child is two, and Boo is 6 months today.
We went all out for Christmas this year. Brand new 7-foot tree and ornaments to go on it, custom Minecraft snowmen commissioned from the daughter of a friend, trucks and cars and fingerpaint soap and a dozen other stocking stuffers. The older boys are old enough now to kind of understand what’s going on, and I can’t wait to watch them day after tomorrow.
That’s the best part of Christmas. All the Christmas past memories are a blur now…but I can remember the joy on my daughters face as clear as day. Those are the most precious to me now.
Retired Magistrate here: My best gift was when I was 4 years old and living in Portsmouth, Ohio in an old Victorian House with pocket doors and two parlors; a front parlor and a back parlor.
My parents put up the Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve, a German tradition. It was always a tall Balsam loaded with ornaments and ice cycles. On Christmas morning I would open the pocket doors and there was the tree; in all its shining glory. Later, I learned that my parents had just gone to bed because they had been up all night decorating the tree and setting up toys.
I loved trains. My father was a traffic manager for a cement company and they shipped by train. So the year I was 4 “Santa” gifted me with a Blue Flyer Lionel train; engine, coal car, box car, cattle car and caboose and a tunnel! It was wonderful. It took me a while to realize what was under the tree because I was so mesmerized by the tree. My parents would then stumble down stairs and feign amazement at what “Santa” had brought me. My Dad didn’t make much money so the purchase of that train meant putting money away for a year or so to purchase the train.
In those days, the week between Christmas and New Year was a time for visiting friends and neighbors; people would just drop in to admire the gifts displayed under the tree. Mother would always have a pot of coffee going and a pie or cookies to serve. It was lovely.
Today, for a lot of people everything is over by Christmas night; I even see trees on the curb on December 26. How sad. The 12 days of Christmas actually start Christmas Day and go until January 6. I am old school; celebrate the full 12 days and those days, just like the rest of the year, I am so thankful for my LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST. Merry Christmas!
We use to set up my husbands Lionel trains under the tree when our boys were young and started the tradition again when we started to have grandchildren. This year I’m surprising my grandchildren with the train set up on a train table table my husband built. It’s about 15″ high so just the right height for our little munchkins. I’ve added a lot more buildings, etc. and had a box car especially made with my grandchildren’s pictures on it dressed as elves. Its done in a North Pole theme with 2 tracks now. I enjoyed putting it together so much and can’t wait to see their reaction when they see the magic come to life. Hubby says we’re going to have to velcro down our 3 yo grandson who’s a trainaholic lol. Merry Christmas!
Bless you and your family and your Christmas. I am fortunate enough to have had both a grandmother and great grandmother to teach me the JOY o Christmas.
We get to share this Christmas with our almost 2yo bundle of chatty energy grandson. Our only grandchild, although his mommy is expecting a little brother in June and we are all thrilled.
Merry Christmas to all
Were they to view from heaven, the mother and father of yours truly and sister born in 1943 and 45 respectively in a small town in Lancashire, UK, would be (as one of our offspring would say – “gobsmacked”!) to look down and see just where their extended families have been able to settle over the years … some still close by in the homeland – “Lancashire lovers!” – with others in Canada, New Zealand, and dotted around the USA from Dallas all the way up to New Hampshire, having traveled the world extensively on their search in between times … So “Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year” – wherever you are !!!
.
Sweet Memories Menagerie
What’s evident here is that your children and grandchildren are the lucky ones to have you looking over them and teaching them the true reason for the season despite the commercial trappings.
I grew up in a very modest income family and our cresche was a 3D one made of printed cardboard from the 1940s. But it was placed in a prominent location in the living room with a big wide red candle next to it that had a star carved into the side. That candle was lit every Christmas Eve and the star glowed until my parents retired at midnight, long after we went to bed. Christmas was always about family.
Today, with family so spread out across the country, it has been increasingly difficult to keep the old traditions. But we continue as best we can.
Thanks for the memories of childhood Christmas… At the time it sure didn’t seem like a Norman Rockwell existence, but looking back it was damn close!
Menagerie, your re-posts are always so meaningful. I always share them with my wife. Your traditions and love for your family and faith are beautiful. Thank you for sharing and God bless.
Thanks, as I remember the days of forcing myself to stay awake long enough to catch Santa. I was so blessed to also have my Dad to join me at the outpost to catch Santa in the act. We even placed treats on the table together😂😂. At that moment his cover would be blown and we could have a talk. Dad was just as eager it seemed as I to catch him🤓🎄🎄🎄🙏🙏. Growing up was a journey that I pray each and every child experiences Merry Christmas
When I was 11 my 10 year old sister lost her hearing to a freak accident while playing softball, one that did not “hurt” her in any way.
Our family doctor and many of his associates could not find anything wrong with my sister to explain why she lost her hearing.
A week spent at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, ended with the same results; no doctor and no test could show why a healthy 10 year old girl completely lost her hearing.
The doctors told my parents to put my sister in a home for deaf children. My parents told them no.
My dad was the bread-winner, the sole provider for his family, and after months of doctor visits — expensive doctor visits — all of our furniture and our family car were repossessed. I remember clearly leaving for school one morning with my clothes neatly tucked inside my dresser, and coming home after school to find all my clothes and bedding lying in the spot where my bed used to be.
That Christmas my parents told us that there was no money to buy Christmas presents. They told us our Christmas present was to be together as a family, and to remember all the blessings we had been given by the God who is the reason for Christmas. Our Christmas present was remembering God’s gift to lost sinners in the coming of Jesus our Savior.
It was 1966 and my dad bought an old black car that ran for $50.
On Christmas Eve our family packed into that 1940s something car and headed out on a frigid night with the stars shining brightly in the sky. Dad had a route planned out that would take us past homes with the biggest and brightest light displays, back when no one worried about their carbon footprint.
As I type this tears roll down my cheeks, remembering how all of my family “Oohhed” and “Aahhed” at each beautiful house, while scrapping ice off windows little faces had fogged up.
We were together — we all were together as a family after Satan did his best to tear us apart — and we were celebrating the greatest Christmas ever, thanks to parents who, like you Menagerie, taught their children the true meaning of Christmas.
Thanks, Raven……. breathing and vision are now congestion and blurry.
~Beautiful.
Mattel Fanner 50!!!! (At this e-bay price…I wish I still had it!)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/165160653335?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=165160653335&targetid=1263094004066&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=9002597&poi=&campaignid=14859008593&mkgroupid=130497710760&rlsatarget=pla-1263094004066&abcId=9300678&merchantid=6296724&gclid=Cj0KCQiA2ZCOBhDiARIsAMRfv9I70ivov94LYt2YHQNGoC7TVBsrmp6pEdZE_80wuV9ztBsEgCqYgzsaAhsREALw_wcB
Thank you.. I have one grandchild, she lives 750 miles away.. I’m hopeful I get to spend more time with her soon..
Not sure I can recall a specific present, that I might have wanted, as there were so many. What I do remember is opening up presents and then waiting for all the neighborhood kids to come out and show off what they got. We all shared, our new toys, large and small, while the adults were in the kitchen busily preparing Christmas dinner. Simple but unforgettable times. Fellow treepers, we are fortunate and blessed, to be living in the best country on planet earth. With much love and respect, I wish you and your families, the very
best Christmas ever.
Yeah, I wanted a Secret Sam.
One year, I got a Space Station. At night, in the dark, it would shine a bluish light onto the ceiling of my bedroom. I also got a lunar crawler. It had these big, rotating spoke-like walkers to crawl around.
Merry XMAS, but, the way it felt back in the 60s, especially if it actually snowed on XMAS.
A beautiful story. The simple things, love, faith, family, integrity, principles are what makes toil worthwhile. Here is hoping for a beautiful Christmas for all of us who treasure these simple things, may we have a fruitful and Happy New Year un-blighted by the opposition of those who don’t value these things but put power, lust and money above them.
Yup, we didn’t have NORAD tracking Santa’s flight…….
We all just listened real hard to see if we could hear him land on our roof at night…….of course, we all fell asleep before he got to our house……drats, maybe next year….
But, you could count on Ol’ Santa, he never disappointed us, he was able to find our house without a GPS.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Cactus, you should’ve watched out for him anyway. Turns out you can see him and the reindeer riding thru the sky, hours before he actually lands on your roof. (Makes sense- right???!!)
Our youngest (at the time) sister saw him once.
She’d gone to bed earlier than the rest of us and must have snuck out of bed and to the window to keep an eye out for him.
Sure enough, about an hour later she was at the top of the stairs yelling “I saw Santa!! I saw Santa!!”
Described the whole thing to us. So excited!!
“I saw Santa!! I saw Santa!!”
As the front of the Christmas sweater reads: “I believe”.
Such beautiful thoughts and memories you have! Thank you for sharing. .it brought warm feelings to my heart!
Praise the Lord!!!!
Great post. Thank you and Merry Christmas to all!
We had Chinese food tradition on Christmas eve, so it was a thrill to watch Christmas Story when it came out. My dad gave the house keys to a neighbor, and while we were dining, he would come into the house and take gifts down from the attic and put them under the tree. One year he put a tuft of cotton on the fireplace screen to help us keep the faith. My parents spoiled my and my sibling. They always got two of the good things. I remember one year with two mongoose bikes on either side of the tree. Years later they confided that Christmas took a full year to pay for.
I’ve been blessed.
Merry Christmas!
Christmas is more fun when children (6 all grown now), grandchildren (9 total, 3 grown), and great-grandchildren (2 so far) are around. We get to buy TOYS again!
I like that. I gave my son and in law to be two prized holstered knifes (handmade). To my daughter I gave a three bladed woman’s knife (handmade). What is Christmas without sharing. If the whole world loved God, the Son and the Holy Spirit there will be no enemy’s fighting each other.
I want a secret sam… and I’m 60!
I don’t remember Secret Sam, but I was the odd little girl who asked Santa for a two gun cow hair holster with silver bullets and a new cowgirl outfit. He must have liked the cookies, because he had it all wrapped up just for me!
My “rich” (they had a “nice” car and a house w/ 2 bathrooms, LOL) Aunt and Uncle gave me a Cowgirl outfit one year.
My goodness that thing was beautiful! Light blue w/ white suede fringe. Hat, boots, skirt, vest.
Wonder whatever happened to that outfit. Hope *somebody* still has it!
God bless you and yours.
Merry Christmas.
When teenaged me told my mother that I no longer believed in Santa Claus, she said, “Fine, then you can be Santa’s Helper and carry presents up from the basement for me. But don’t say anything to spoil Christmas for the little kids. They are entitled to the magic, same as you were.”
Beautiful.
Best wishes to you and yours for a very Merry Christmas.
That’s so cool!
As joyous as Christmas is, as the grandkids get older, it does leave me a bit melancholy. The apple of my eye is away with her Dad for the first time in 9 years… Merry Christmas, Treepers!!!
Great post!
Thank you and Merry Christmas to all!
What a great kids commercial from back in the day. It was a little after my toy time. I do remember Davey Crockett’s coonskin hat and Roy Rogers’ (cap revolver in a holster set with gloves and red vest).
What a whirlwind of “Karens” would be after our mothers in this day an age for giving their kids toy guns.
I had a Davy Crockett coonskin hat!
Big Davy Crockett fan!
I’d love to see a re-run of that show to see what the appeal was.
I always post about the Mighty-Mo cannon, but some other memorable gifts I received back in the 60’s were a REAL ten-speed bicycle, a COX gas-powered Red Baron Fokker triplane, and a Creepy-Crawlers maker with a spare pack of Gobbledegook refill material. Good times in a long-lost world.
Will be focusing on my 14 mo. old grandson this Christmas, dreaming of Christmases past.
Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah to all, thank you for the great post.
I have 3 sons. When they will little, the two older ones were teasing the youngest, kind of relentlessly that he was going to get a Barbie doll for Christmas. We bought the two oldest Barbie dolls and the youngest a pellet rifle. It’s their fondest Christmas memory and this Christmas we will all be laughing about it.
That’s a great “back at ya'” to the older kids. LOL!!!
As one of the “older” kids, I know how relentless we were w/ the youngest.
Sometimes I wonder how she made it thru it all in one piece!
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
God bless you and Merry Christmas to you and yours
Grandad fell asleep in his chair next to the tree with lighted cigar. He woke up and dragged the flaming tree out in the snow.
I got a pair of skates. I kissed my uncle who was standing under the mistletoe.
As a child, the items on my Christmas wish list were always various sporting goods, a new BMX bike, and of course, a new BB gun.
Can you guess what gender I am? Maybe one day Ill tell you the story about Me and my abusive big brother and my BB gun on Christmas day.
A lovely post, Menagerie. Thanks for the post. Childhood at Christmas was (and still is, if parents let it be) special. I always loved the stockings. And snowball wars. And Mangers. And the thousands of luminaries … real ones, not the fake electric ones. Unfortunately, my grandchildren are on the other side of the country this year and Duo and Zoom are no substitute for being there. But at least the technology lets me share a little of the joy with them. Peace to all and Merry Christmas. 🙂