Well it’s been a few days since I’ve had time to get in the studio. Both of my girls are home and we’ve been running like crazy. Today we went and had a family photo taken with Santa. We haven’t done this since my girls were in grade school. That was about 15 years ago, if not longer, and my sister, myself and my two girls had a photo taken for my mother. Today it was my sister, myself, my girls and my mother. My oldest daughter wanted to do this for her grammy for Christmas and I have to tell you it was so much fun. Of course, when Santa asked my mother what she wanted for Christmas, without hesitation she said “a new red Mercedes convertible.” BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA – for any of you that know my family, my dad is probably spinning in his grave – that’s a foreign car!
I also had our Sorority Christmas Social here Tuesday night. What a great time we had! This is also the inspiration for my Sketch Challenge card this week. I started making Lemon Drop martinis at the start of the evening and needless to say, when it came time to sing the 12 Days of Christmas there were some that couldn’t remember the words! Some in one area of the circle were singing 10 Lords a Leapin’ while the other side was singing Six Geese a Layin’ and then one would just shout out Five Golden Rings whenever she pleased. I do believe fun was had by all – Good Times! 
Anyhoo, late this afternoon I finally got around to stamping this weeks Splitcoast Sketch Challenge. I used some of the Happy Hour images from Rubbernecker Stamp Company and came up with this fabulous Martini card – and yes, ours the other night were shaken, not stirred.
For the background panel, the martini shaker and sentiment, One Martini, Two Martini, Three Martini, Floor was stamped at random on a piece of olive cardstock. I used Tim Holtz Shabby Shutters Distress Ink for the shaker and Peeled Paint Distress Ink for the sentiment. I also stamped the sentiment on the white panel behind the circles but then I used Shabby Shutters and off-stamped twice before stamping on the background. The edges of both the background panels were sponged with the Shabby Shutters as well as the larger oval in the main sentiment. For the circle images, I stamped them out in Adirondack Pitch Black and then colored with Copic Markers. I was in a little hurry today – so no water coloring. I have to tell you that I got a little carried away with stamping the sentiment on the background and sometimes it looks blurry – well it is but I left it. I think of few of us were seeing like that on Tuesday night!
Stamps: 244-15 Olive, 244-18 One Martini, Two Text, 244-20 Stylized Martini Glass and 244-19 Stylized Shaker by Rubbernecker Stamp Company
Paper: Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, Olive and Light Blue
Ink: Adirondack Pitch Black, Tim Holtz Peeled Paint and Shabby Shutters Distress Inks
Accessories: Copic Markers, Scotch Double-Sided Tape, Mounting Tape, Ribbon, Brads, Tsukineko Oblong Sponge Dauber
I’ve included a photo of the product that I’ve used for this card. The Copic Markers are available at Eclectic Paperie, and the remaining product can be found at My Favorite Products Page at Rubbernecker Stamp Company.
Now, if you are still with me, I’ve got some Tawdry Treats for someone today. Here’s what you need to do – leave me a comment telling me about one of your favorite gifts that you got for Christmas as a child. I’ll start! When I was about 10 years old, all I wanted was a bowling ball. Every word that came out of my mouth was about a bowling ball – of course, I was bowling in the junior leagues and hated using a house ball. We didn’t have tons of money then but wow was I surprised Christmas morning when there was a blue and green swirly bowling ball in a pretty blue and white bag under the tree!
On Saturday morning one lucky person will win this Kris Kringle, Star Garland and sentiments from Rubbernecker Stamp Company.
When I was about 15 I received a weed-wacker for Christmas! Now, you have to understand that at the time it was NOT my favorite gift and in fact wasn’t really a gift of mine, but my dad just has this funny sense of humor and put my name on it for Christmas because I guess we needed one anyway. I did think it was funny and knew it wasn’t mine, but now when I think about it – it just cracks me up! I’m grateful to have a dad with such a fun way about him…especially since he passed it onto me! My daughter is now 15…hmmm. Oh! We already have one! Oh well! Thanks for letting me share!
I don’t know how old I was – but I remember receiving a Cabbage Patch kid. It was well into the craze and I was desperate for one. I still have it (in the basement) and will be pulling it out for my daughter any day now. Thanks for the awesome treats!!
great card Sherry …. hope you have a wonderful Christmas … I guess one of my great Christmas memories is the year my Christmas stocking was filled with lots and lots of outfits for my barbie …… but every Christmas was wonderful when I was a kid … Mum made sure of that 🙂
This sounds really crazy but my favorite gift when I was a child was a globe that lit up. I had always thought I wanted to be a travel agent when I grew up and I would dream of all of the exotic places I would visit as I would stare at this globe. I still have it so many years later. Amazing how the world has changed. Thanks Sherry and Merry Christmas and I hope you had a lemontini for me!!!
Cheryl Sims
Absolutely fabulous card!
I have to be honest and tell you that there isn’t a gift that I could hold in my hands that I remember from when I was a child. Isn’t that horrible? What is the most important gift is the gift of my grandparents being there for every holiday that there was. They would either come to our house or us to their’s but we were always together. One thing I do remember is that my brother played trumpet as a teenager and we showed up at my grandparents house on Christmas day and woke them up by my brother playing revelry. They were so shocked and it was just a GREAT day!
I hope you have a very Merry Christmas Sherry!
Well, the most memorable Christmas gift was my brand new kelly metallic green Schwin 10 speed bike. Oh, how I loved that bike.
Wishing you the merriest of holidays!!!!! Enjoy your girls while they are on break!!!
I remember one year peeking at one of my gifts and my brother and sister caught me and took the contents of the box. When I opened up the Spirograft on Christmas morning the box was empty. I still have it, almost 40 years later.
That must have been fun taking a pic w/ Santa!!
One of my favorite gifts from when I was a child was a Cabbage Patch doll — we didn’t have much money and it was way after the whole craze, but my Mom finally got one for me. She had a tooth and smelled funny (they had a distinct smell, not bad, just weird) but I was so happy to finally have one. April was her name!!
When I was 12 I got my brother three days befor christmas… I had wanted a brother for years…. I have a an older sister that I just love a ton… But, I wanted a brother too…
reflections:0)
Merry Christmas Sherry, love the card!
The gift I remember best is the Dolls House my Pa (grandfather) bought me when I was 3. My Mum and Dad had said I couldn’t have one but Pa came to the rescue. Sadly he died later that year so it was the last present from him too. I played with that house for years and every time my parents re-decorated our house I’d re-paper and paint the walls of my house. It finally gave up the ghost when I was about 12 but I can still picture it now many, many, years later,
I hope you have a wonderful break with your family and that the New Year is good to you,
Cheers,
Sharon
My fondest memory of a gift I received when I was a child for the bike I got when I was 8. It was pink, with a pink basket and pink frills that hung from the handle bars. I thought I just the queen bee on that bike!
Glad to hear that you’re having a good time with your girls.
Merry Christmas – Regina
My favorite gift was the crisp, fresh smell of cold air mixed with fireplace smoke on a fresh snow Christmas morning. That gift of rememberance is greater than any toy I ever received. To this day a good chill air and a fireplace brings back the most wonderful memories of childhood. Sherry, the card is beautiful. If you draw my name pass the stamps on to someone else, I have lots. LOL, don’t we all. Merry Christmas.
My favorite was a dollhouse. i remember being so excited to put the furniture in it and the dolls. there are even cheesy smile pictures to prove it! I love your martini card. the sentiment rocks.
My fav present was a Barbie Dream House. Didn’t look a thing like the plastic stuff we see today! It was made of cardboard and the walls folded out to make the house. I made furniture for it out of toliet paper rolls and cardboard sleeves that bars of soap came in!! I even made curtains out of kleenex!! That house was the BEST!
What a fun card, Sherry! This is a fun question! When I was about 3 (I think) I wanted a Thumbelina doll from Santa soooo bad. I was so happy that he brought one for me! I loved her until her stuffing came out when I was much older and even then I put her in a plastic bag. I won’t tell you when I finally threw her away! My other favorite thing I got for Christmas was my Chatty Cathy and I still have her (even though she is nakee and my friend pulled off her pull ring. She is now residing in my curio cabinet. I guess this post gives away my age range, doesn’t it ;o)
A bowling ball? Ha! I can’t say I had aspirations in that direction…maybe I should have! I remembered asking for a Barbie every year for years. My mom would not buy me one due to her strongly held feminist beliefs. Finally, one Christmas, she broke down and got me one (styled like Brooke Shields with Jordache jeans…gawd, I am dating myself!). Well, the next morning I woke up to find my dog had ate her. Sigh, that was the first and last time I had a Barbie! (I am depressing myself now!)
My absolutely favorite present was tickets to a live show (Reveen, a hypnotist) ALONE with my father. The show was fun, but the real present was alone time with my beloved father. We have a very large family (5 “homegrown” kids and 88 foster children over a span of 20 years), so a few hours alone with Dad was a present I treasured – and the memory of which I continue to treasure to this day!
Oh how fun sitting on Santa’s lap!!! (get your mind outta the gutter girl!)
Glad you are getting lots of time with your girls.
My fav gift as a child was a dollhouse – one that was beautifully decorated and I used it for these little fancy mice (they were dressed and all the rage!) I was sooo very excited. It is a memory I always think of at christmas.
Have a great holiday, Sherrie!
My favorite gift, as a child, would have to be the bride doll that I received when I was 6 years old. She was so beautiful in her long white lace gown……..she was almost as tall as I was…….but, that didn’t stop me from carrying her around and playing “wedding” with her.
Sherry, this card is too much fun. Sounds like you and your family had too much fun on your outing and party too. My most favorite gift as a kid was a 2-story Barbie dollhouse my grandpa made me; complete with carpet floors, linoleom kitchen & bathroom floors, stucco walls, stairs, the works. If you can find it in a house back then, he had it in my dollhouse. He even made the furniture inside it as well.
Awesome card Sherrie…you always remind me that I need to put a little humour into my cards, yours are always so refreshing; they make me smile! My favorite Christmas memory was when I was 15 and I wanted a stereo (not just a record player). Christmas morning I went out to the tree, and there were a whole lot of presents with my name on it and none the size of a stereo…so I sulked like a spoiled teenager. Mom asked me to go and get some bread out of the freezer, and as I passed my bedroom there it was…a huge Radio Shack stereo with a turntable, 8 track player and stand alone speakers. I laid on the floor, put Neil Diamond on really loud and positioned those stand alone speakers right at my ears. I was in heaven.
Great card Sherry!
My favorite gift as a child was always my Grandma’s homemade applesauce. Every year she would cook some up just for me and can it. Nobody (especially my brother) was allowed to eat my jars of applesauce.
As Grandma got older and her hands got more arthritic, the applesauce got chunkier and chunkier. I got so I loved that chunky applesauce so much that when I make it myself now that’s the way I make it.
Great card!
I think my favorite Christmas present ever was the day my nephew was born when I was 15. We waited all Christmas day for him to arrive which he did around 3 in the afternoon. That day was so special because I became an Auntie for the first time!! It is one of my favorite things to be!!
Merry Christmas to you and your family!!
Okay, get comfy–this is a STORY!
My mom did not believe in Barbies (unhealthy image of a woman’s body etc.) so I was in second grade and still did not have one–though all of my friend had MULTIPLE Barbies.
In 2nd grade dear Mrs. Tuttle had us write Christmas letters to Santa–as a writing excercise. I had just about decided that there was not a Santa Claus so I figured it didn’t matter what I wrote. Jenny White my best friend asked Santa for a Ballerina Barbie (she spun on a stand and kicked when you moved her just so). Well, though I did want a Barbie–She was not the one for me (I took Ballet class for Physical Therepy–I STUNK and I HATED it) BUT I knew so little about Barbies and I thought Santa was not real–so what the heck–THAT is what I wrote I wanted, a Ballerina Barbie.
We put the letters in a special mail box that Mrs. Tuttle decorated before we went to lunch. And when we came back–they were GONE! And a week later, with the help of his elves, ALL of our letters were answered!!!!
Do I have to tell you what was in my stocking??!?
YUP! You guessed it Ballerina Barbie. But Santa went all out and gave me accessories and clothes for her, too. So I was not truly dissappointed, just REALLY surprised.
How did that happen? How did that end up on my hearth as my gift from St. Nicholas???
Well, my older brother was in the 5th grade, and can you guess what THIER writing assignment was??? Right again, answering the little second grader’s letters to Santa.
I was YEARS before the whole story came out. We (mom, my brother and I) still laugh about it. And that Barbie, well, she got a hair cut a few years later and a crown-adectomy (the crown was PERMENANTLY attached in her skull). But she still dances and plays with my daughters.
That is my favorite Christmas gift as a child.
~Juliana
Hi Sherry! Love the card, and am jealous of your fun times with your sorority sisters and Lemon Drop Martinis – those are my favorite.
My most memorable Christmas present was a Chrissy doll that I got; I can’t remember how old I was, but I nearly peed myself when I saw that Chrissy doll sitting under the tree on Christmas morning! Some of you may not recall, but Chrissy was the doll whose hair could grow shorter or longer by turning a crank on her back. I LOOOOOVED brushing her hair, washing her hair, braiding it, curling it, whatever my imagination could conjure up to do to her hair. At some point not too long after Christmas, I had done so much to that poor doll’s hair that it all fell out! I think I cried myself to sleep for days after that. I call still remember the feeling that I had when I saw that doll under the tree like it was yesterday. Merry Christmas!
Sound like you girls had waaaaaaaaaaaay too much fun! I can’t remember a specific gift, but it probably have been a doll, but not a Barbie – never had one of those.
Have a wonderful Christmas, Sherry.
First of all …. “Shaken” is the bestest! *wink*
Second … My favorite Santa gift as a child was my green parakeet “Tweedles”. I got him for Christmas as a first grader. Tweedles was a part of our lives until Spring of my Senior year in high school! Sometimes, Santa gets it just right!
~Bev
Our family was poor and there was six of us kids so we cherished whatever we got no matter what it was . There are only a few Christmas’s that really stand out in my mind .
The most memorable Christmas I can remember was when my older sister and I got unfinished dressers for Christmas and we got to paint and decorate them however we wanted , it was alot of fun .
May you and your family have a fun and memorable Christmas .
So many have had barbie on their wishlist when they were kids..you’re right, my bestest gift when I was a kid was a barbie with her makeup, bathroom and outfit accessories. I didn’t grow out of it till I was 14! eeks!
I gave them away when I went into high school, but still love them!
Merry Christmas Sherry!
Thats and adorable card!
Tejal
[email protected]
When I was 8 I received my first wristwatch–we were at my Grandma and Grampas for the night and it was so exciting just to be there Christmas morning but then to also get something I wanted very badly.
When I was little, about 5 years old,I wanted a pair of cowboy boots. All I could talk about was what my cowboy boots would look like. When we opened out presents one of them was a long flanned nightgown than my Grandma had made which was immediately put on, the next was the cowboy boots and they were immediately put on. To this day I still get teased about wearing my boots to bed.
I remember when I was 10 years I received a Panasonic bike that I wanted so much. I was so excited that all I want to do was to ride the bike all day long.
Awesome card…and Merry Christmas.
Great card to celebrate what sounds like a fun time with friends! I can’t think of a most favorite present, but my most memorable one was the doll that went with the Edith books by Dare Wright. My parents would keep our wrap our presents in their bedroom until they wrapped them. well I “happened” to sidcover this doll when I was in there one day and without giving it a second thought, I started playing with her. My brother, who is 4 years older, walked by the bedroom door and caught me. He was appalled that I was even touching a Christmas present and convinced me that I’d never get another present if my parents found out. I believe I gave an Academy Award worthy performance on Christmas morning by acting surprised when I unwrapped the doll. Only my brother knew the truth – until last year when I told the story at Christmas dinner and saw my mother’s shocked expression – she never knew that the doll had been “pre-enjoyed” by me!
My pink Huffy bike. Remember those?! That was the best present ever!
I was about 10 and got a chemistry set. In short order I had the house full of smoke and rotten egg smell! What were my parents thinking???? WOuld love that blog candy!
Mary Puskar
i WAS ABOUT 14 OR 15 and I got my first 10 speed bike and got to ride it down the street to a friends house first thing that morning…
I remember one year I just had to have sea monkeys from an ad I saw in the back of a magazine. I thought they were little monkeys, lol. I got them that year along with an aquarium for them to swim in.
Claudia
[email protected]
Wow, it would have to be the dollhouse – I loved that! Thanks for bringing that memory to mind! It’s been a long time since I thought about that!
Peggy S
I got a horse as a Christmas present. It will go down as my favorite gift ever!!!
It’s a good life!
Terri E.
Merry Chriistmas! Beautiful card. The best gift I can remember is the year we received this hugh train set for Christmas with all the scenery and people. We attached to a piece of plywood. I enjoyed more than my brothers. And to the day I truly love trains
Have a Blessed Christmas!!
My special memory would be when Santa brought me my Suzie Homemaker Oven. I was so COOL! My little sister was turning 1 year old in a few days after Christmas….so….I had to make her first birthday cake with my new oven. It’s the perfect size for a little one. I thought I was the coolest kid with my oven making my cake. The little cake was so pretty with 1 candle on it. Of course it was a big hit! Ok you are thinking how could everyone have a piece of this AWESOME cake….well my mom had a cake for the whole family!
Thanks for a chance at your sweet Tawdry Treats!
[email protected]
My favorite Christmas present when I was a kid. Back then we got the Sears and JC Penny catalogs. The year I was 8 while studying the JC Penny catalog there was this red jumpsuit with a white tie to go around the neck for girls, (remember this was in 78), well the little girl doing the modeling in the picture had the name “Lisa” embroidered on it. I just knew this was a sign and just *HAD* to have it. My mom thought it was the silliest thing she had ever hear, but I did get it for Christmas that year. I loved that jumpsuit and wore it all the time. You can see by the Christmas picture that I was so happy to get that jumpsuit. That year I also got a fur coat, that was so badly wanted..lol. I don’t think I will ever forget that Christmas.
My most memorable gift as a child was a cabbage patch doll. They were so popular and not only could we not afford one, but they were impossible to find. I didn’t even ask my mom for one because I knew there was no way we could afford it and I didn’t want to make her feel bad. We had Christmas morning and then went over to grandma’s. When I opened the doll from her I couldn’t even speak. It made me feel so special that she would get me such a special and hard to find gift.
We only “celebrated” Christmas when I was very little, because even though we are Jewish, Santa loves all kids — and thank goodness my folks were liberal enough to go with that ;^)* (I am doing the same for my kids on a small scale…)
Anyway, it may sound odd, but I loved mice, and I remember a little chocolate mouse sitting on top of a package… it really made an impression.
As a slightly older child, I remember a Toot-a-Loop radio! Oh, those were the days… AM Radio rocked, and it was WRKO all the way!
Even though I don’t drink, I love your card! Always that special sense of humor with each of your cards. MMmmm, my favorite Christmas gift when I was a kid???? We were military brats and mostley celebrated holidays without our relatives but, somehow Mom and Dad managed to create the most memorable Christmases ever. Like the year they got the bright idea to put Angel Hair on the tree. We itched for weeks but it was beautiful. Being the 2nd of 4 kids, I usually wound up with my big brother’s hand-me-downs including his abandoned toys. Mom is German and she knew how to stretch stuff and get all the good out of it before it was thrown away. The Christmas I turned 10 mom and dad gave me a gold ID bracelet. I was a devout Tomboy until I got my bracelet. My mom said I changed over night. I was just coming into being a Girl and I got my first girly gift from my parents. I still have it and I just turned 57. YES, I said it in front of everyone!
P.S. Sherry pick me, pick me!!!
WHAT A CUTE CARD!
When I was 9, I wanted a Baby Feels So Real doll and she did! She was about 5 lbs with something inside her, soft skin and cute pj’s. I remember taking a picture on my dad’s birthday (He was a New Year’s baby) and he was holding my doll and I was standing next to him in my black velvet popeye jumpsuit dress with long-sleeved blue sweater. I remember so vividly because it was the last Christmas/his birthday I had with him. He died on April 4 that year. My sister surprised me with the photo (she took it with her camera) in a collage picture frame she gave me on for my wedding 10 years ago.
Great blog candy or I should say tawdry treats :)! Okay, now for the BEST childhood gift I got at Christmas would have to be one of those bouncy horses on the metal frame. We were at my Nana’s house for Christmas (I was 3 or 4), when I woke up and went out into her living room I saw a HUGE bag sitting there. I ran to get her so that she could tell me who that gift was for, she told me it was for me. When it was finally time for me to open it, I ripped the bag off and hollered “Wow, what a prize” :)! Yip, that is one of those stories that gets told too many times at Christmas time…
Merry Christmas to you and your family, and Hugs too,
Catherine
http://www.mystampinggrounds.blogspot.com
[email protected]
When I was about 7 or 8, I got a Barbie Dream HOuse. It wasnt palstic and wood like the ones today. It was all cardboard and you had to put it together with sticky tape and tabs. I tore the pop out bed the first day because I bent the tab the wrong way. I had it for several years and it was a real Barbie Brand. I also got a knock off doll but I always thought she was prettier than Barbie because her face was a lot softer. The house eventually fell apart and I used it for one of the first times I did organic gardening with my grampa (we grew tomatoes) and all my dolls went to a little girl I babysat for who was not in a good family situation, and it made her happy. LIttle did I know 2 years later I would have a daughter who also loved Barbies (I think over the years I had about 20 but my daugher has maybe 200!) I often think of little Jenny and her playing with my Tammy(only Barbies are Barbies-so I renamed the others) doll-she had a daugher at 14—-I wonder………
I got a Chrissy doll that when you pushed her belly button, you could make her red hair grow long. Then wind her hair back to being short. (yes…still have her after 30 some years.)
I remember drooling over a new bike when I was 8 or 9, and finally got my very own 10-speed bike when I was 10 years old. It was the prettiest thing ever sitting there all shiny red in front of the Christmas tree. I remember riding on that thing ALL the time. 🙂 Thanks for a chance to win those terrific goodies! Kelly
Cute martini card, Sherry! I think my best childhood Christmas gift was when I got a varsity jacket. I know it probably sounds odd that I got that as a gift as a child, but in our town everyone had one even if you weren’t a varsity athlete (or in high school!) It holds even more special memories for me now as my daughter will be getting hers for Christmas this year… and well earned as she was one of only 2 freshmen to earn theirs for volleyball this year!
I was about 8 when I received a can-can from my Aunt and Uncle for Christmas! It was a surprise and I just loved it! Boy did I think I was the cat’s meow in it. Weird I know!
Fun & creative card Sherry! My gift would be a stuffed, long-ear donkey. He was really cute. Thanks for offering candy that won’t go to my hips!!
My favorite Christmas gift was all my puppets and a puppet stage that doubled as a grocery store with a 2 way phone and all this cardboard groceries. Now that was cool. I won’t say how many years
ago that was. But then, it was pretty neat.
Kandi
Cute card. My favorite gift was the stereo I got when I was about 12 or 13. It was my first real stereo with am/fm radio, cassette player, turntable & 2 big speakers. I used to spend hours in my room listening to music on that thing.
My favorite gift was a new bicycle when I was in the first grade. I got up in the middle of the night and it was there! It was such a wonderful surprise. Thanks for your generosity and for sharing your wonderful works of art with us.
I was so excited to get my first Ohio State hooded sweatshirt as a child…I caught Buckeye fever early in life, so I was thrilled to be able to dress the part.
Have a safe, peaceful holiday.
I had a bad habit of falling off the bed on top of nearly everything I ever got for Christmas, starting with the baby doll that was supposed to cry when you turned it over (but didn’t after I fell on top of it and broke the thing in its stomach) and proceeding on to my Chatty Kathy doll that I fell on top of and knocked one of its eyes right back in its head, giving it a weird and macabre glare only heightened by its tinny little voice saying, “May I have some more tea, Mummy?” Then there was the plastic sewing machine that I fell off the bed on top of and totally smashed. You think Spike in Toy Story was feared by toys…I was number two on the list of children to be avoided by toys who wanted to remain whole!
My sister’s toys always looked like they came right out of the box…mine looked like they had been dragged through a hedge backwards. But I have to say my favorite gift was the oil painting set my mom gave me…I produced the world’s ugliest oil paintings with it, but I loved the way they smelled!
I always looked forward to the books when I was a kid. I loved the Little House on the Prairie books — I’d get another one in the series with each birthday and Christmas. I do have a favorite memory though. When I was 9, we lived on a dairy farm in NJ. My dad got the tractor stuck on Christmas eve in a trench that was full of sileage. We never had a Santa — we always opened the gifts on Christmas eve (don’t worry — I didn’t know any better so my childhood wasn’t deprived, although my husband thinks differently!). My dad finally got the tractor “un-stuck about 3:30 in the morning. That’s when we opened our gifts! I will never, ever forget that Christmas and how un-selfish my dad was!! Thanks for helping me remember! Merry Christmas! Jeanne
My most memorable Christmas as a child (I was probably about 3-4 yrs. old) also revolved around a really special gift I was hoping and hoping for all year. She was a doll named “Thumbalina” that was one of the first dolls who could kinda move, as you pulled a string out of her back. I can still remember how instantly in Love I was with her when I ripped off the Christmas paper and realized it was her. Compared to what toys are capapble of doing now, it’s rather comical, as Thumbalina could only move her head a tiny bit, from side to side, while this noisy grinding sound was being made as the string went back into her body.
I was on the MOON with happiness and later in the afternoon Christmas Day, we we would visit my Dad’s parents (my Grandparents) so of course I took Thumbalina to display to them what an amazing doll she was. As I pulled the string for the umpteenth time that day since opening her, I realized with horror that the string had pulled right out of the doll’s back and was now hanging in my hand!!!! Tears began to stream down my face as I was horrified to see my beautiful baby doll just laying there, dead to me, as she could no longer move or wiggle now that the pull string was in my hands.
My Dad decided he’d perform some surgery on Thumbalina and see if he could reattach her string to whatever mechanism made her move. He delicated made an incision down her chest, exposing all her mechanical parts and after a few minutes, both my Mom and Dad decided it was a lost cause and they should just let her go. My Mom delicately sewed her back up and dressed her back in her beautiful outfit, as I just sat there with tears streaming down my face and feeling like I had just lost my best friend. My parents tried to reassure me that I’d get another Thumbalina once the holidays were over and the stores were open again, AND if they could find one in stock. But by then it really didn’t matter to me, as my *Real* Thumbalina was gone and lay lifeless in my arms.
Now some 40 years later, I still have my first Thumbalina doll that had to have emergency surgery and has the scar down her tummy. I also have my second Thumbalina who still works today *smile* and every now and then I take her down from her shelf and EVER**SO**GENTLY pull the string out from her back and then hear the familar noisy grinding sound that goes along with the gentle movement of Thumbalina’s head and body. This precious gift still holds such memories for me, esp. when remembering how careful my Dad was when trying to fix her and then him trying to tell me that it wasn’t possible …..it’s an incredibly precious memory I’ll have for my entire life, along with my still working Thumbalina, who has to be about 39 years old 🙂
My favourite gift was a tape recorder. My sister and I had to share because it was quite expensive but we loved it and used it for years. Our friends and us would sing into it and play back the terrible sound we made, but we thought it was so good.
I love the santa stamp, I loved the card you made with it so much so that I have hunted all over for the stamp but alas, not available in the UK. Merry Christmas. Andrea
I remember my most favorite gift as a child was my first “boom” box! I absoultely loved to sing and dance in front of the mirror (corny, I know) and what better to do it with than my own boom box in the privacy of my own room. (I did realize I wasn’t that good which is why I needed privacy)! LOL Thanks for the chance! {SMILES}
I’m probably late, but my favorite gift was a 10-speed bike that I got for making straight A’s. My parents had me convinced that I wouldn’t be getting it and I was totally shocked.
My favorite gift that I got as a child was the Barbie Dream House….all furnished from top to bottem, with a car parked next to it! I didn’t leave the side of the tree all day!