Christmas Memories

When people think of Christmas for the rancher’s daughter, they often think of the many Christmas movies that revolve around the rancher’s family finding the Christmas spirit and keeping secrets on the ranch. There might be a pony kept hidden in the barn until Christmas morning, or an emergency with the animals on Christmas Eve. In these movies the dad walks into the house from a hard day at work to be greeted by excited children wanting to show him the tree that they decorated. The mom spends extra time and saved up money to make sure each child gets the perfect something for Christmas. These movies are idyllic and might cause some to roll their eyes, but there is actually some truth to these somewhat predictable movies.

Confession #7: Yes, I have actually lived through some Christmas movie moments.

              The Christmas that I was five years old, my sister and I wanted a pony.  Not just any pony, a palomino pony with a golden mane and tail. Like any good dad, my dad set out on a quest to find his little girls the perfect pony and didn’t stop until he finally found it. After only one day of trying to keep us from the barn, my parents decided that they weren’t going to be able to keep the pony hidden until Christmas. It was just a few days before Christmas and my grandparents were over for dinner. My sister and I had no suspicion of the monumental surprise that was about to happen and were happily showing off our miniature Christmas trees when our dad announced he had a surprise. Waiting inside with our grandma and baby sister, we impatiently tried to guess what the surprise was and fought the temptation to peek out the window. Finally, our dad whistled, and we ran outside to find our Christmas pony! That was one of the rare moments when my sister and I were breathless, but there stood our palomino pony with golden mane and tail, Bronco.

              Another Christmas when we were much older, and there were four of us girls instead of just three, we received an even better Christmas present. A baby brother! Since it was just us four girls, we were excited to finally have a little brother to play with, but this baby brother just wouldn’t come. Early December passed by, along with his due date, and Christmas was drawing near. My sisters and I were hoping that he would be a Christmas baby, but our mom was praying that he would come soon. Finally, about a week before Christmas she finally said that the baby was going to come. Since we lived a long way from the midwife, we stayed at our uncle’s house in town.  The whole weekend we played with our uncle and other family members, always pausing to check in on our mom, and then run back out. Our uncle did everything to keep us busy, going to the park, decorating for Christmas in every way possible, watching movies, but finally five days before Christmas we woke up to a new baby brother!

              Sometimes childhood Christmases were not so sentimental, but just a memorable. One Christmas, when we were all older, all five of us told our mom we wanted a 4-slice toaster. We had seen a funny meme on Facebook of a guy all busted up from the Black Friday crowd, but by golly he had got his 4-slice toaster! A 4-slice toaster… Now, it probably sounds strange for all five children to ask for a toaster, but when there are six people waiting to get toast, and there are only two slots to the toaster, and people want seconds…it can take a while to get your toast. That Christmas morning, we got our 4-slice toaster and boxes of frozen waffles for our family gift!  It was amazing what a difference that 4-slice toaster made. When people asked us what our favorite Christmas present was that year, we all said, without hesitation, the 4-slice toaster!  We received some odd looks, but when you come from a large family you tend to appreciate different things.

Note: This was originally published as part of a column series that I wrote for In the Field Magazine.