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Saturday, December 11, 2010

When I was very young ...

... I got a "working" telephone for Christmas. I was no more than three or four, and it was part of Santa's sack that got left at the end of our beds sometime during the night.

It's probably my first Christmas memory, and it's so vivid because I remember playing with the phone - that had a real ringtone! - at an insanely early hour of the day.

It got me thinking - as I frantically turned topics for this post over in my head - what Patrick's first Christmas memory will be. Mine was of playing with what was to become a much-loved toy (I thought that phone was the best thing ever - because it rang like a real phone) that had been delivered to me by the jolly old man from the North Pole.

Christmas - for me - is a jumble of impressions mostly: going with my Dad to choose presents for my mother and my sister; decorating the tree with the same ornaments year after year; going to midnight mass and having milo and cheese sandwiches afterwards; arguing over board games or card games with my brothers and sisters; turkey dinners in the middle of the afternoon and paper hats askew as the day wore on.

So I do treasure that first, clear memory, of playing with that toy in the middle of the night that was pretty much guaranteed to wake up my sisters, but it was just so magical and new, I couldn't help myself. And now that Patrick's three, I'm hoping that I (and Santa of course) can impart a little bit of that magic to him.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

It would be hard for me to isolate one first Christmas memory. My parents were amazing at making Christmas special for my sisters and me each year, even when they didn't have a lot of money to spend on us. I do remember, though, one Christmas when I was six or seven, my father made me a loft bed, and my aunt and uncle got me a clock radio, and I remember lying on the bed listening to the clock radio thinking I was just the fanciest thing ever. :p

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing! I'm sure your parents can't have been too happy in the end for giving you a telephone that made so much noise.

On the other hand, they must have loved it how you were hooked to it.

Have a great Christmas.

Jan said...

You've made me think with your post and I'm going to ask my son what his first christmas memory is. Thank you and happy christmas.

Tami said...

What a great memory! It will be fun - in about 20 years :) - to discover what your son remembers of these years. Thanks for sharing.

kayerj said...

how fun, after reading your post I've been combing my memory trying to decide what my first Christmas memory was--I think it is tromping through the snow after my dad while looking for a Christmas tree. Thanks for prodding my memory.

@parridhlantern said...

I had a phone,well 2 with a very long cable between them.My bedroom was at the top of the house, the attic room of an old dickensian house & the cable went from my room down to the 3rd from bottom step. Whenever my mother wanted me she would use that phone,This allowed me hours of isolation for my reading. I loved that little phone.