Day 21

We are in the final stretch here. Christmas is on Saturday, are you finished with your shopping? What did you ask for this year? When you were a child, what was best gift you remember getting?

When my niece Elisa Gail was five, (I think, or six?) And her family stilled in Okmulgee we had Christmas there, (no, this was not the year of the days inn stay, that was another year). I think it was a quiet year, maybe just Clyde and Steph and Elisa Gail and Kat and I. Kat made a turkey and Stephanie paid for it if I remember correctly.

Elisa got up early early to open her presents, and that year she was the one who got to pass the presents out. She had picked a Christmas teddy bear as a gift for her Aunt Kathleen, because Kathleen had a lot of stuffed animals at her house when Elisa came to visit. She got me geode bookends, which I still have. But she got the best gifts of all.

From her Daddy, the cop, she got a tiny gold ring that fit on her finger perfectly. She was so excited and so proud to show everyone her pretty ring. From her Mama, the lawyer, she got her very first BB gun. She was eager to take that out in the back yard and shoot something RIGHT now! If you know my niece, you know that is still who she is. On the one hand, she is a beautiful young woman, on the other hand, she was only girl in her high school graduating class that had pictures of her and the deer she shot in the photo collage slide show.