Friday, December 25, 2015

Turning Christmas Right Side Up

It's been an odd Christmas Day...just out of  sync.  Not all that bad, but different.  Sarah won't arrive for her Holiday visit until late tonight, so we've postponed our main celebration until tomorrow evening when everyone can be together.  The rest of us had a simpler, and delicious meal, cooked by my other daughters last night, but the presents are still wrapped, we had leftovers or your choice for  lunch.  The rest of the family went to various church services last night, and the Walkers and I went to a less glorious service this morning. The turkey is still thawing, the rolls are still rising, I just made the dessert and reset the table from last night's supper.  Nothing has seemed quite right, but just okay.

This afternoon I sat down to thumb through Facebook and look at other people's celebrations and saw the Walker III had been busy upstairs on "my google", and had posted a picture of what was probably his best Christmas gift of all.  It was about twenty years ago, and at the time he was totally  obsessed with "Home Alone" and "Home Alone II", two holiday movies that appealed to his developing sense of humor and adventure.  All he, and virtually every other boy in America, wanted for Christmas that year was  a TalkBoy..a  tape recording device that the kid in the movie  used to fool the crooks.  It  was essentially impossible to buy that particular toy by the time Walker requested one.

I haunted Walmart daily.  I went in so often that one of the clerks finally took pity on me and agreed to call me when the next shipment came in, and I scored one on December 23.  I thought I was Santa Claus...or the lady at Walmart was.  I couldn't wait for Christmas morning, but when Walker saw the device a strange look came over his face.  "It's not the right one."

"What!  It's the only one...of course it's the right one!"

"Nope...see...this writing is  different."   And he proceeded to get the video out and freeze the frame, and sure enough, there was a slight difference.  Somehow  I managed to convince him it that it was that one or nothing, and Christmas was not a total disaster.  He enjoyed many years of playing tricks on us with the TalkBoy.  His speech teacher even found ways to use it to improve his speaking ability.

The original TalkBoy bit the dirt, and I moved heaven and earth to find a replacement a few years later.  I think that one probably died in a garage sale.  It would retail for about $400 today.

I kind of like that on this topsy turvy Christmas Walker is thinking back to that happy time in his life and that now he knows how to use Google and Facebook to find pictures and post them. Let's just hope he doesn't ever discover Ebay and try to buy one.

Aw....
What the heck...if he does, that just makes him a collector, doesn't it?

Now I'll get back to finishing up tomorrow night's Christmas Dinner, Sarah and family will arrive in a few hours, all the others will gather tomorrow afternoon,  and all will be right again....just like Walker and I like it.

Blessings,
 Janie

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Beautifully written. I think if an occasion is different from " traditionally " something seems wrong. Maybe our age has something to do with it.