Nov
24
2007

Gifts of love

Driving back from the supermarket this morning I was listening to a radio discussion about Christmas presents that the radio presenters had received as children and the ones that made a big difference to their lives. Whilst I don’t remember receiving any presents that made a huge difference to my life, I realised that there are very few presents that I actually remember.

However, there is one huge exception. When I was about 8 years old and my sister was 6 our parents gave us a Sindy house, but this wasn’t one of the manufactured ones. Our Sindy house was lovingly made by my Dad, it was basically a tall bookshelf with extra wide shelves that gave it three rooms. Each room was then furnished by my Mum’s creative genius, sofas and beds made out of tissue boxes, tables made out of cardboard toilet roll inners for the pedestal with cardboard for the top and book shelves made out of little boxes. She made blankets, pillows and cushions out of off-cuts of fabric. We adored it, but what struck me today was that my parents who had very little money thought really hard about a present they could give us and then they had to put all the work into creating it. We played with it for many years and it is only now that I truly appreciate how much love they put into making it.

So, which childhood Christmas present do you remember best? Not just the most expensive one but the one that was selected so carefully by the giver that it meant a lot?

NB. For those sharp-eyed people, yes I have started a thread on the ship with an identical post.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |

2 Comments »

  • Smudgie

    How odd, the gift that made the biggest impression on me was exactly the same – a home-made dolls house. I still have it, though it’s much the worse for wear and my attempts to do it up failed at the discovery that it is in a scale that’s no longer popular. 1/16. But it’s beautiful and I love it. My brother-in-law made it for me, a three-bedroomed tudor house with lighting, and his mother made furniture for it. It explained, too, the reason I’d been feeling neglected recently as I’d used to love standing watching him work in his workshop and all of a sudden I was banned from there completely for what seemed like an eternity!

    Comment | November 24, 2007
  • bimble

    I can remember really wanting trainset one Christmas, to wake up on Christmas morning and discovering a large lego trainset on the dinning room table (lego and trains, how cool was that???). It was amazing and I still have the bits.

    Comment | November 25, 2007

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