Vol IV: #40 My Favorite Gifts
My favorite Christmas gifts are memories. And my experience flies directly in face of what Amazon and Walmart want us to believe. They want me (and you) to believe Christmas isn’t Christmas without the perfect gift, because the best memories involve spending money. What a shame. What a lie.
My favorite moments include shopping for trees with my brother and sister. Like the time my brother and I lacked the necessary rope to tie our tree to the roof of the car. Never shy about asking me to take one for the team, my brother instructed me to hold the onto the tree until we got home. And because he was my hero, I did my duty- nearly freezing my right hand off on the ride home. Good times.
As for my sister and me, we share a library of memories. My personal fav is when I demanded we shove the tree- trunk first- into our burgundy station wagon. Picture it. A thick, sappy trunk resting against the inside of the windshield between us while the bottom branches scraped the back of our necks. And then, we left the Christmas tree lot and made our way to Rush’s, a local burger chain. After ordering our cheeseburgers and milkshakes, we pulled forward to pay where our noble steed broke down outside the drive thru window. We laughed and laughed at ridiculousness of our situation, so much so I was barely able to push the car forward out of the drive thru lane. What I’d give to hear what the workers and customers thought when they saw us.
For me, those are the real gifts, the unplanned yet hilarious Christmas memories with people I love.
