Nothing stresses me as much as buying Christmas gifts for people, and it is not the money! I love giving gifts! I am simply not a shopper. I cannot pick out gifts to give.
Back when I worked in Raleigh I would tell Poppy to expect me home late...that I was going to do some Christmas shopping after work. Well I would walk and look and look and walk, and finally after wasting three hours of precious time, would go home, mad at myself and depressed.
Somehow every year though, I manage to get the gifts, as mama would say..."such as they are," get them wrapped and under the tree. From a couple years back...
Christmas shopping used to be simple, and fun! of course, I was a child then! Daddy used to give each of us children a little shopping money before Christmas to buy each other presents. There were no malls around then. Our shopping was done simply by walking to town...the town of Robbins, in the early 1950's.
Gift buying was exciting! For daddy, it was a box of chocolate covered cherries, Old Spice after shave, or a pack of handkerchiefs. And every year daddy was totally surprised, and as pleased as could be with what we had picked out for him.
Lee's dime store was where we shopped!!! For mama, there was so much to choose from...fingernail polish, lipstick in the little metal tubes, Jergins lotion, Pond's cream, ladies handkerchiefs, Evening in Paris perfume. Lee's sold all sorts of lovely things! Mama was always surprised too, and happy with what each of us had picked out for her! How proud we were to watch them open their presents on Christmas morning!
What Shelby, Jackie, and I got for Christmas didn't come from Lee's dime store. Everything we wanted could be bought at Sears Roebuck. From the time the Sears Roebuck Christmas catalog arrived until Christmas eve, one of us had a pencil and sheet of notebook paper making lists. Everything we wanted was in that catalog and Santa Claus somehow knew that.
There was no doubt in my mind about there being a Santa Claus either! There was a Santa Claus! Why would anyone even question such a thing. Then one day Shelby was snooping around while mama and daddy were away from the house. She found everything! Under a bed! Did she keep it to herself? No! She broke the terrible news to Jackie and me. DRAT!
This is not a picture of our tree nor of our house. Sure wish I had more old family pictures to share with you. There used to be a box full of pictures at home, like there is in every household. Somehow I got the short end of the stick when the family pictures were doled out. Anyway, the old picture above reminds me a bit of how things looked when I was growing up.
One Christmas Santa Claus brought me the most beautiful baby doll. She was dressed in pink and lace and she wore a pink bonnet over her blond hair. She was a large doll, in a pink box. I first saw this doll displayed in Williamson's grocery store sitting high up on a shelf. I knew she had to be mine...I just knew it! I remember right then telling mama and daddy, that is the doll I want for Christmas! Mama and daddy were friends with the Williamson's and I had gone with them to the store. Occasionally, the four of them would get together and play cards. Their names were Dawsey and Pearl. Their small grocery store was on a street behind the grammar school in Robbins. Dawsey and Pearl lived in a small house that was connected to the back of the store. Friends, on Christmas morning, that very doll was under the tree with my name on it!
Thank you for visiting!
Love,
Henny Penny
Christmases seemed more magical then...today we have to recapture the magic that you can't buy,
ReplyDeleteJane x
You are so right! Thanks for visiting!
DeleteHenny! I love your Christmas story, things were much simpler when we did not buy things on line or rush around and worry about how to please people like we do now - and mostly, they are not pleased with what we get them now. I especially love the story about the Sears catalog, we had them in the 1960s especially but I was a toddler in the early 1960s, so it was not until around 1964 or 1965 that I really got in the swing of things. I did love the dime store, too! I had a nickel each to spend the year 1964 and I got my mother a pink plastic rose and my stepdad a rabbit foot keychain. I thought I was the cat meow's! We got that at the Ben Franklin 5 and 10. Thanks for making this holiday enjoyable for this old scrooge! XO Terry
ReplyDeleteHey Terry, That is so sweet...the rose and the rabbit foot keychain. Can you still buy rabbit foot keychains? You know, in the 1950's, I bet a box of Brach's chocolate covered cherries didn't cost more that a quarter, if that much and was probably a pound box. It is just no fun shopping for people now. Love you Terry. Henny
DeleteI love your Christmas story. I hate to shop also. I try to have a plan of what I am going in the store to get, get it, and get out as quick as possible. Daddy use to tell me about going through the Sears catalog. I remember as a child waiting on the Wish Book that is what it was called when I was a kid. Seth got to enjoy a small version of it for a few years and now I don't think they do a catalog any more. Oh well that is why we have memories. Thanks for bragging on me.
ReplyDeleteI love you, Vicki
Thank you Vicki. I was so sad when Sears stopped sending out catalogs. I LOVED looking at the Sears catalog! All of them! When I mentioned getting mama the fingernail polish, I thought about your daddy. One Valentines day Jackie went to Lee's Dime Store and bought mama a bottle of dark dark red polish. He was so proud of that. Seems like one of us got her some clothespins too. Times have sure changed! I love you, Henny
DeleteI hate Christmas shopping simply because I never seem to get it right. It's easy when the kids are small but when they're all grown up and seem to have everything and don't want anything - it's a nightmare.
ReplyDeleteOne Christmas my son suggested gift vouchers and I said 'but they seem so impersonal, like I haven't thought about it' - at this he said - 'well think about it first, and then get them !' - I couldn't fault his logic !!
You are so right! Now the grandchildren tell us to get them a gift card from Game Stop, or an i tunes gift card, and what fun is that? I don't even know what those things are and probably didn't spell the words right! I keep telling the family...you don't tell people what you want! I enjoying picking out a little something special...giving it to them because I love them...of course then it's something they won't like! Oh well, times have changed!
DeleteWe could shop together and get nothing bought! I hate wandering the aisles. In your second photo...I notice that you have the same Merry Go Round Horses we have and the same callopie. We missed out though..and do not have the round one with the horses. One day soon I will tell my husband to put it up! :)
ReplyDeleteWhat beautiful memories! My father loved Old Spice and chocolate-covered cherries too!
ReplyDeleteThank you! All men must love chocolate covered cherries.
DeleteOne Christmas my sister came to visit with her two girls (about 4 and 5 yrs. old). They went to the Ben Franklin's in town and bought Christmas presents for all of us. The girls got me earrings----heart shaped colored glass, one set turquoise and another purple. I still have them and that's been a long time back. The little girls are in their 50's now---it's hard to believe they could possibly be that old (or for that matter that I could be that old).
ReplyDeleteOh, I love to hear about the presents people used to buy. The earrings sound pretty. I have a daughter who just turned 50 and a daughter 48! Where do the years go? Seems like I was 50 just yesterday!
DeleteDear Henny,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this jaunt down the lane. Yes, things were simpler and in some ways, more beautiful then. There is still beauty for the taking, but upon occasion a bit more intention is required to find it.
May the peace and beauty of the season be yours,
Jen