The gift of good memories

I used to cry every Christmas over one particular gift. One year, in my teens, I got verklempt over a pair of hot pink Reeboks. I had admired my sister’s, and my dad noticed and slipped her some money to buy me a pair.

When I was a kid a favorite present was a lifelike baby doll that I called my Jeff doll because it looked just like my little nephew, Jeffery, plump and cute. All my other dolls were hand-me-downs because I was the last of five girls. The Jeff doll had a Beatle haircut as per the fashion of the day. My older sister, Robin, cut the bangs, assuring me they would grow back.

One gift under the Christmas tree one year I kept feeling, trying to figure out what it was. It was an extra gift for me, one from Santa. It turned out it was a plastic dispenser of bubble bath. The top part was the upper half of a Barbie type doll. Her arm, held akimbo, was the handle. I had had more fun with the gift before it was unwrapped than afterwards.