Most treasured gifts

Some of the most valued gifts don't cost a lot of money.

My daughter and I were talking about that this week. In times past, there were gifts exchanged in our family that were somehow more special than others.

Decades ago I bought a well received Christmas gift for my father-in-law. It was a small battery operated radio, no bigger than a TV remote. I wasn't sure he would like such a thing. What he usually listened to was an old table model radio in his living room. But the battery radio I bought for him became a handy gadget. Each morning he would take the radio to the kitchen. Then while eating his breakfast, he would listen to the hometown news at the kitchen table. He enjoyed the radio for years.

A gift my grandson loved more than any other was a pair of brown cowboy boots given to him by his grandpa. Our grandson was two years old, living in England, when he received the gift by mail. The boots, a pair of Fred's $3 boots, were too big for our grandson but he wore them anyway. In fact, he begged to sleep in them, my daughter said.

When he sat in a grocery cart, the boots would fall from his feet because they were so big, but he insisted on wearing them everywhere. It became a chore just to get him to take them off. He did eventually grow into them, I'm told..

My grandson is now 26 years old, My daughter has kept the boots all these years as a keepsake. Those boots bring back memories of my grandson's stay in England and of his grandpa, whom he dearly loved.

An unusual gift given by my son to his sister and her husband was a load of firewood, ready for the fireplace. My son took one piece of the firewood, gift wrapped it, and put it under their Christmas tree. When they opened the gift, they were dumbfounded. What did a piece of wood mean? The answer was clear when my son led them outside and showed them a truck load of firewood. He had cut the wood, split it, and loaded it onto the truck bed and drove it to their house on Christmas day. The unusual present helped keep them warm that winter.

My daughter always tried hard to find something that would please her daddy. She hit on it one year when she bought a pocket calculator for him. It was at a time when the calculators were as popular as cell phones are today. They came in various sizes.

The slim calculator my daughter bought was exceptionally small, not more than two inches wide by three and a half inches. The gift became a shirt pocket companion of my husband. He would whip out the tiny calculator in the lumber yard, hardware store or whereever and begin calculating what a product would cost. He figured how many square feet he would need in carpeting or flooring. He was always adding, multiplying and dividing.

Just recently I found the much worn calculator in an old dresser drawer. I didn't have the heart to throw it away.

A gift remembered by my son was a 410 guage shotgun his dad bought for him decades ago. At the time, our young son was not tall enough or mature enough to shoot the gun. He was told that when the gun ( standing upright) came to the top of his nose, then his dad would take him hunting with the gun. For several months the measuring went on, to see if our son had grown tall enough for the gun to reach his nose. It was a handclapping day when it finally did.

As for me, one of the inexpensive gifts I appreciated was one I received a couple of years ago. It was a bean bag that is heated in a microwave.

That therapeutic bean bag has helped soothe an aching back, a pulled neck muscle and tired shoulders. Perhaps not a conventional Christmas gift, it was nevertheless appreciated. And still is.

A gift my husband bought for our 13 year old granddaughter was not cheap. He insisted on buying an Appaloosa pony for her one Christmas. It was to be a big surprise. She loved horses and had always wanted one.

On Christmas morning, my granddaughter opened one of her gifts. Inside was a black studded bridle. She looked at it in puzzlement. She had been riding our neighbor's beautiful white stallion so she decided that the bridle was a gift to be used when she rode the stallion. As she sat on our couch, holding the bridle, my husband asked,"Why don't you use it on your own pony?"

She looked confused, disbelieving. The whole family watched as realization turned to happy tears.

Then my husband drove her to a neighbor's pasture where the pony was being temporarily housed.

No gift since then has been more treasured, my granddaughter often says.

Yes, there have been other gifts over the years that had meaning.

But those mentioned will be remembered with special fondness.

Merry Christmas, people.

May your holidays be bright.

And your gifts treasured.