99 word prompt : Christmas memories
December 3, 2020, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that includes family traditions. It can be related to any holiday or situation. How does the tradition impact the story or change the character? Go where the prompt leads!
If you want to participate, here’s the link: CARROT RANCH
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How long ago it was, living in south Florida on a busy road. Mom painted a nativity scene on the window each year.
My sister, who was 13, wanted a new bike for Christmas. At 10, so did I. On Christmas day, her shiny new bike glistened under the tree. My bike had a new paint job, but it was the one my sister no longer wanted!
I threw it on the floor, screaming that I wished I could throw it to Georgia.
Every year after that, my sister and I received a package of white underwear and $50.
When I was twelve I got the red Schwinn boys bicycle with the white pin striping and the leather seat. I used it til I was 22! 🚴 Yes my brother got my old bike! It’s good to be the oldest!
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My sister often mentioned both the perks and the drawbacks of being older. The youngest get to see the oldest make the mistakes and get punished for them. Then we can find new and better ways to avoid punishment.
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A great lesson on gratitude.
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I doubt many children at the age of 10 understood how much our parents loved us, or the concept of being poor. $50 a year inside an envelope was the equivalent of giving us a few hundred dollars today. She had to save up all year to put $50 into 2 envelopes.
For the 11 – 17 year-old, taking the bus to Burdines to spend money on what we wanted each year, and foraging the after-Christmas sales, was a better Christmas present than anything else. I have no doubt that seeing our happiness made her Christmas better.
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When you are poor, Christmas can arrive with all kinds of anxieties. I think, in the end, a graceful solution emerged. And I remember that bike! There was one on a ranch where my grandfather worked and it found its way home to my grandmother. She loved riding that bike (she never rode horses).
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I bought a 3-speed bike when I was 22, and rode it a mile to work each way — and actually knew how to maintain it on my own. I can understand how your grandmother loved riding a bike.
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It’d be hard to get a hand me down at Christmas. Bet you felt bad afterwards for your reaction though. I liked that transition to cash. No disappointments, and enabled to make a significant purchase. My first pair of (my own) cross country skis!
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I didn’t know until taking courses in it in college (at the age of 31) that people with dyslexia don’t mature normally. I often tell people that when I was 20, I was mature for a 13 year old. 🙂
I felt no remorse, especially after mom said I would get a bike when I was tall enough to ride my sister’s. I was in “I’ll show her” mode and promptly rode my sister’s new bike on the sidewalk in front of our house. No, I couldn’t reach the seats, but I could hold onto handlebars and work the pedals.
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Ouch, but I suppose a good lesson learned. I was the youngest of six, (would of been nine if they’d all lived’ so I got a lot of hand me downs too! 💜
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There is a fascinating story. Have you written about how that happened?
Unless your family was rich, it had to be a hard life.
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Lol no we were never rich, Dad worked a body maker for London Transport ( he sewed the seats that adorn the buses and tubes. It was hard at times it was always make do and mend. There was always love and life a plenty. Timothy the eldest died at six months, then there was Teresa, then Mary, then twins, Frances first mum though oh! More girls but second twin was Tony, then J. P. (John Patrick) then more twins but they were dead, finally me!
Yes I have written bits and pieces about it all. 💜
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That must have been terrible for your parents, and yet they loved and provided comfort for their remaining children.
My children lost their father to diabetes when they were 5 and 7. Watching someone you love die, when you’re that young, leaves and indelible mark.
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Yes indeed it does, I am so sorry to hear that it’s awful. Death is always a harsh visitor.
Yes Mum and Dad did their best for us always and for plenty of others too there were always, cousins , friends and all manor of waifs and strays staying at our house, no one got turned away. If the beds or the sofa was full there was always the floor 😅 💜
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💜
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💜
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Life can be tough at times. It sends us difficult lessons. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to learn what we need.
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I’d hazard a guess and say it probably takes 20 million lifetimes. 😊
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I agree. And even then we wouldn’t learn. I’ve learned little from my previous lifetimes. If I’d learned more, I wouldn’t make so many mistakes in this one. 🙂
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I was the younger sister… and our parents for no real reason that I could see treated us the same. We weren’t twins, not that close but not that far apart in age. Ended up getting mostly the same gifts. I tried to learn from their mistakes for my own children and made sure they a) weren’t spoiled and b) were treated respectfully different.
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For us, that $50 meant shopping for what we wanted, and a coveted trip to Burdine’s for the after Christmas sale. We were eager for Christmas. 🙂
My kids got the gifts I knew they wanted, and I don’t remember a time they were disappointed. I think that’s the key.
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We made it a point to not go overboard. I think they eventually apricated that. My grands get overloaded by other relatives. So I don’t bother with their wish lists. I just get what I think they’d enjoy.
I remember being disappointed too many times. But one learns to pretend and also to be happy with the ‘thought that counts’.
I like those little booklets I think my children made one year of coupons for doing things (especially without being told or complaining) 😀
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That’s cute, and the best present ever for a busy parent.
I have one grandchild and send her a gift certificate for her birthday and Christmas. My son said that’s what she wants and she thanks me over the phone when she gets one. I have 2 grandchildren by adoption (my Son-in-laws children from what I like to call “the egg donor.”) She was a great stepmother. Both are adults now.
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I think when some one calls or sends a thank you – you want to continue. I’ve got some family that I sent gifts to for years and didn’t get any Thank You’s. One was over a year late when it finally arrived. So I stopped… Now I just gift ‘local’ as it were.
I still have a hand made paper bead necklace from one of my children. And a bunch of those ceramic things that students had to make in Jr & High School. 😀
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