What is the best Christmas gift you ever received? Which is the most nostalgic? Which ones do you remember from your childhood?
This is one of the first gifts that I remember receiving – a marionette of Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring, from the Howdy-Doody Show.
The best gift I ever received was a new car (1985 Pontiac Grand Am).
The most nostalgic gifts I remember aren’t ones that I received, but gifts that my new husband and I made for our friends and family the first year we were married. We had very little money, so it was both challenging and fun. Friends of ours were just as broke, and got their “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree from the neighborhood lot for a couple of bucks. We all chipped in to make the decorations. Lots of fun!
Best of all, just a few weeks after Christmas, we were blessed by the birth of our daughter. A never forgotten and best gift ever!
Stella's Place 
Christmas 1948 mi casa
my Lionel trainset.
LikeLiked by 5 people
The year was 1951, in a time and place where the local saloons were the places that a man who was willing to work could find work, like minded camaraderie and sometimes a little financial help.
One cold evening a gentleman in financial distress appeared at the bar, in desperate need of cash.. In his truck was a brand new Electric Singer Sewing Machine. My father was in need of a Christmas gift. $25 was exchanged and the deal was done.
In 1951 my father gave my mother a beautiful sewing machine for Christmas. Cast iron, gilt decoration and a cherry wood carrying case with inlaid lock. My mother cursed the machine and deemed it “probably stolen”. I, on the other hand, found that sewing machine to be fascinating, so my mother gifted the machine to me. (and the heavens sang)
Tonight, I put the final stitches on a Santa suit and realize that over the years I have used that machine to sew Christmas gifts for, among others, my great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, myself, my son and my grandson.
On the 65th anniversary of its existence, I sit with that beautiful sewing machine and marvel that in all its travels & with all that it has created, it has never been to a repair shop, it has never had the grease replaced & it runs as beautifully as the day it came off a flat bed pickup, in a tavern parking lot.
Best Christmas gift ever….
LikeLiked by 8 people
What a lovely story and remembrance!
LikeLiked by 4 people
like this one?
LikeLiked by 3 people
My mother had one like that.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I have one like that – right now it is at my daughter’s house. The last time I used it, it was working fine!
ADD: I looked up the serial number a few years ago. It was manufactured in the 1920’s.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Pretty close. I think this is an earlier model, perhaps the 20’s or 30’s. By the time 1951 came around Singer had added a stich adjustment on the front panel and the tension set-up had been improved upon and moved from the front of the machine. But as a whole, the basic Singer cast iron machine didn’t change much over the decades and they were amazing..
LikeLiked by 3 people
I asked “Santa” for a little tape recorder back in the late 1960’s, and I did get one: a little tiny reel to reel tape recorder. I recorded music from the radio, did radio “newscasts” and also recorded Christmas songs I would sing with my mother. The gift was goofy, and probably cost my parents too much money, but I do remember it with fondness.
LikeLiked by 6 people
Wow, good question. First one that flashed into my head was that of the replica Winchester 30-30 back when I was maybe 5? Back when the little plastic bullets were still allowed to be shot out, along with a cowboy hat and boots, think a stick pony as well.
Have had a lot of good ones, funny that is the one that jumped to mind first. Second thought was a set of golf clubs and membership into the men’s club by my ex. Funnier yet was how pissed she got when I started playing every weekend!
LikeLiked by 3 people
My father traveled a bit for work… One Christmas I got a silver ring, with an Iroquois stone.. I also got a pin of a road runner. Dad had been to Arizona and brought gifts back for us. He died way too soon, I was only 12, so I cherish these two little pieces of jewelry. I wore both of them the day I finally got married(a little over 2 years ago), for something old, and something blue.
Much later in life, it must have been High School, my twin sister gave me a tiny black kitten… but there is a back story… She worked at a Friendlys and went out to dump some trash…She heard the little kitten crying and rescued him… I named him Tim, after Tiny Tim from the Christmas Carol.
Some a$$hat dumped the kitten in the trash… Gee, I haven’t thought about Tim in so long… bittersweet.
LikeLiked by 6 people
This was one of my favorite gifts ever. I’m was not a doll girl. My mama bought me one every year, hoping. But she bought me the cool stuff I wanted too. After raising three boys, and now enjoying granddaughters, I still think girls get the crap boring toys. They are uninteresting and insipid.
LikeLiked by 8 people
My mother bought me a doll… once.. My dad bought me a racing car set, you know the track with the little slots? If I had the room I would get one today, a giant one, with lots of track and twists and curves… hmmmmmm… and put a train set there…Its not a toy, mind you, its a model!!! 🙂
LikeLiked by 6 people
I loved my dolls that I got on Christmas.
LikeLiked by 5 people
The first Christmas gift that came to mind was a grey/silver rabbit fur pillbox hat and muff that a cousin sent me. Not very practical for somebody who lived in Florida, and I probably only wore it a couple of times, but just knowing I had it made me happy. I was probably about 12 then.
LikeLiked by 4 people
My parents became Jehovah’s Witnesses when I was about 5 years old so my last Christmas was when I was 4, all my cap guns were taken away, and I was no longer allowed to play with “worldly” children. Christmas memories? Bah! Humbug!
LikeLiked by 2 people
😦
LikeLiked by 3 people
funny thing, yesterday two Jehovah evangelical Witnesses showed up at my front door in the middle of the afternoon….but when I asked to see materials before speaking with them, they had none…funny they were two black guys dressed really casual, in a 100% white neighborhood of nice homes…..more like casing the joint than promoting Peace on Earth at Christmas. Anyone coming to my door is met today with a camera taking their picture and a denial of solicitation on the spot…we had to have Neighborhood Watch and Patrols it has gotten so bad…..Halloween…no local kids, all bused in Hispanics by the DROVES looking for free goodies….Sorry Charlie…but you don’t live here, I have nothing for you at my front door. Sad plight of America today.
LikeLiked by 2 people
How about adult gifts? I received my car when I was in my thirties – best gift ever!
LikeLiked by 4 people
You need to make up for those days now, get yourself a great Christmas gift!
LikeLiked by 2 people
nyet, I didn’t realize Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate Christmas. And they call themselves Christians? How does that work?
My dad, who never set foot inside a church after leaving his parents’ home, always threatened to spell out BAH HUMBUG across the top of our house in Christmas lights. Fortunately he never actually did it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That is terrible
I remember Christmas kinda died with my father for a while… My mother didn’t want to decorate or put lights out, or anything. But we move on,,, looking back I remember those earlier, wonderful times, the dark memories mercifully fade. Eventually it became my job to put out the lights,,, and I did it with vigor.. and years and years later it was my job to put out Christmas lights at my mother’s new house… I would make a special trip…. Every time I did it,,, I thought to myself, “this is for you dad.”
LikeLiked by 5 people
My best gift was my only child in 1979. We had no money, so we took photos of her under our little tree. She was so pretty she brought tears to our eyes. I still love her so much!
LikeLiked by 9 people
That brought tears to my eyes.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Hmmm. What does it say about me that I can’t come up with a single “lifetime memory” type of Christmas gift?
OK, not a gift in the sense of something to unwrap, but definitely a lifetime memory. The Christmas that I was 12 (mid-60s), my parents took my sister and me to Aspen, Colorado for a week of skiing. We rode the train all the way from Mississippi, slept in a Pullman car, ate in the dining car. It took 3 days each way to get there. We stayed in a hotel with a heated outdoor swimming pool and had snowball fights in the pool. Learned to ski before the days of teaching kids on really short skis. Sis and I were left on our own for much of Christmas Day while mom and dad went skiing on the more challenging slopes and were told to go to the restaurant next door for lunch but they were closed. So we just ate candy from our stockings. It was the first of many skiing trips to Colorado–Breckinridge, Telluride, Steamboat Springs. I loved skiing and became moderately good at it. Many years later, that Christmas trip to Aspen is a cherished memory.
LikeLiked by 7 people
That sounds like a great Christmas memory to me.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Awesome. I have tried to ski, and I really enjoy it. The train trip sounded wonderful.
LikeLiked by 1 person
On a long drive at Christmastime, I picked up an old guy hitchihiking. He was a bum. Asked me for a cigaretted, but I don’t smoke, so he just sat there and ignored my attempts at conversation.
After a while, we stopped for gas and I got him a slice of pie at the cafe and a pack of smokes.
Then he became talkative.
He loved his freedom, traveling all over the U.S., hitchhiking, riding the rails, the rugged life, and the attendant adventures.
Part of me wanted to join him.
When I dropped him off, he wished me Merry Christmas, and, because I had mentioned that I played guitar, he gave me a beautiful guitar pick he had found.
That was thirty one years ago, obviously one of my most memorable Christmas gifts.
LikeLiked by 6 people
Awww, this is really nice.
LikeLiked by 4 people
During the war years, there were no toys to be purchased as all metal was used by the military production, and the cheap Japanese toys of course were not going to be sold in the USA…so my parents had two young boys, my brother and I, 4 and 6 yo….so dad had a jigsaw and loved woodworking as a hobby, as well as art carving…so he made wooden pistols, rifles, and a train set with wheels all out of wood, painted them, and hid them in the top of a closet to await the Big Day….now with limited toys anyway, my parents were in a habit of taking up some toys and putting them away so we would get to have them later kinda like new ones….so somehow, my bro and I were Prowling as we called it, and found the Xmas Toys…took them down and told parent…”wow, we don’t even remember these toys”…..what a bummer, but they just took it in stride like the Greatest Generation Did then, and found another way for Xmas to have a fun set and meaning for us….I don’t actually remember this….but it was a family Story for years to come. I think our grandmother who was a genius with sewing on her singer treadle sewing machine got into gear and made us pillows, pajamas, shirts, and stuff….and candy and cookies too….we never went without a fun Christmas…until we got teenagers and “too old for toys” so to speak….
LikeLiked by 2 people
I still have my grandmother’s treadle sewing machine up in the game room…has all the bobbins accessories, measuring stuff, chalk, pins, needles, extra leather drive belts, little oil can to lube the dude….and a ton of old patterns from Lord knows when….I can’t get rid of it….
LikeLiked by 1 person
One year I bought “bush hats” at the Banana Republic for my sibs and sib in laws. They were olive green, vaguely outdoorsy looking, but they all laughed about them… They put them on and were running around outside ( we were a long way past kids long way) and eventually my brother thought he should climb a tree, Adults wearing bush hats up a tree at my moms house.. That was memorable. Admittedly some manner of festive libations may have been involved.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Bush Hat
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wonder what day 5 will bring???
LikeLiked by 2 people
uh…maybe..
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
lol……
LikeLiked by 1 person