A Homemade Christmas

I’ll wrap up my blogging this semester in the spirit of Christmas. Before the times when my sister and I could expect video games and cameras on Christmas morn, our family was experiencing hard times. Dad was experimenting with different managerial jobs around the country after his premature retirement from the Air Force during the Reagan/Clinton draw down of the early-Nineties. Job-hopping eventually landed us back at my mom’s parents’ where we stayed for two fantastic years.

Apparently finances must have been tighter than usual, because my sister and I were accustomed to the usual Wal-Mart Christmas: Hasbro and Mattel toys and fresh clothes, rather than hand-me-downs. But one Christmas was to be different. Mom took us aside and informed us that there would be no Wal-Mart this time around. Instead we would be getting something special, but not bought with money. We were probably skeptical – at least, I don’t remember feeling terribly reassured – but we were at that age where it is better to be outside and in the woods than inside playing Gameboy, so we accepted her explanation and set about getting excited for Jesus’ birthday.

When Christmas came around, it was better than we could have guessed. I do not recall what my sister received, but I was equipped with an entire armory of wooden weapons. In the heyday of raising children, Grandpa had mastered the manufacture of wooden guns from plywood, where the outline was traced with pencil and a jigsaw used to cut out the toy. Once free it could be sanded around the edges to prevent splintering. This technique he passed on to my dad that Christmas and the two of them spent hours fashioning swords, shields, and riffles enough to arm the entire household. The swords were fashioned in the style of the blades from the cover-art of my Narnia books – to which I was addicted – and I recognized them immediately. The shields were crafted with real leather grips heavy-duty stapled to the wood – I was heartbroken when the leather gave out, rendering one shield useless – and the rifle had a real military strap attached to the barrel and the stock, so that I could sling it across my back. But the pies de resistance was a PVC canon, complete with wheeled cart for easy field maneuvers. I was overjoyed, and spent the rest of my middle school years armed to the teeth and superior to any imaginary beast that thought to oppose me.

It was also at that time that I was developing my model craze. I had started with model trains, and somewhere had come into possession of a full track and train set. But I lacked terrain so Dad created papier-mâché mountains over chicken wire, with tunnels cut through the center, just like in the magazines. After my initial jaunt through the woods that left the wilds behind the house piled with the corpses of unfortunate goblins, I returned to become to railroad tycoon and ran freight for the entire afternoon.

To this day I’ve still got the best presents ever. It may not be often that I venture forth to do battle or to maneuver the iron horse through the Sierra Nevada, but my gifts are faithful, awaiting my eventual return.