Growing up in the north, there was really only one sport that mattered to us kids: hockey. And if you didn’t get a hockey sweater or a hockey stick for Christmas, you were considered seriously deprived. Well, imagine getting both! Pure glory!!
I was about 5 at the time it happened. My father had received some kind of bonus from his work at the steel mill. There was lots of talk about it in the house. But still, with an older brother and sister and a baby in the house, none of us kids were getting our hopes up.
Christmas Eve came and we got our stockings special delivery as usual. My Aunt Mary did them up for us. She used real socks with the second sock tucked inside. (What every kid hopes for Christmas, right?! A pair of socks!)
No matter… there was always an orange in the toe of the sock, an apple in the heel, lots of hard Christmas candy in between and usually the kind of nuts you had to use a nut cracker to open. And I don’t know how many Christmas mornings I awoke with a candy cane stuck to my pillow.
But that Christmas morning stands out among all Christmas mornings for me…and it was clearly reflected under the tree that year. I had never seen so many gifts. And since hockey sticks were never wrapped, I spotted mine right away and immediately thought how great it would be to get a new hockey sweater, too. I had a hand-me-down one from my older brother Peter, but never a new one. Could this be the year?
Well, a picture speaks a thousand words, doesn’t it? It was the Christmas of my dreams, the one to remember forever. Across so many years and so many Christmas’s it’s funny what stands out. But I think I’d trade all the Christmas’s I have ever known for that great one in 1956 when I got the stick and the sweater.
So from my Marilyn and my household, may this year be your year to remember! May it be filled with lasting memories for you and your household. And I hope you like your hockey stick!
And by the way...I'm the adorable one on the right! ;-)
just thinkling
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