Damn fine list. We got the BB Gun, a Daisy Golden Eagle, that was a shared gift between the three boys. Never got the bike, three boys and we had to share one 20 year old Schwinn bike until I finally saved enough to buy my own, a beautiful Fuji 10 speed in magenta coloring, that started a life-long love affair with riding. The original shared bike came just on any old spring day one year, not a holiday or birthday gift. I did get a chemistry set for my birthday, I was changing water into wine and burning #### on the rubbing alcohol Bunsen burner. My brothers and I did save up snow shoveling money and went in on a slot car set. Excellent fun, loved them when we had the foam tires on them instead of the harder rubber or plastic they came with. My older brother got a Lionel train starter set with an engine that emitted "real smoke". My parents always spoiled him. No interest in erector sets. We also got an NFL football to share one year, and an ABA style basketball another, again to share. One year our Aunt who had always gotten us sweaters and socks came through with Risk for us boys, that was sweet. We also each got ice skates, used, one year shortly after Christmas which was sweet.
Oh, one other year my older brother got a sled, a brand new sled, that was unusual for my folks, to buy something brand new. Man that thing shone. That was a good year because we then had less sharing on the old sled that was passed down from my father's youth. Us two younger boys could share the one between just us two, instead of all three so it was like we got a present too.
My daughter gets more gifts in one year than I received in all the Christmases and birthdays of my youth. Still, our Christmas mornings as a child seemed magical. I mean you got a present to share, some socks and maybe a shirt or some pants, an orange in your stocking and some years maybe a candy cane as well. You were out of school. There was always snow outside. We had a special breakfast where we often had a fresh Stollen made by a neighbor. Church had better music than the rest of the year, and we then drove to our cousin's for a good supper. After diner, usually venison or turkey, sometimes goose or pheasant, Grandpa, who lived next door to the cousins would hook up a team of Clydesdales to an old sleigh, the old folks would get in and we would tie a pair of old toboggans off the back and we would go for a ride. The tack for the horses included sleigh bells, so it was like a Christmas song. Grandpa would always ask me and my Cousin Johhny to ride back with him in the sleigh to the barn to unhook the team. by then the horses were warmed up well, the sleigh was substantially lightened without the adults and the toboggans and those horses would just flat out haul ### to get back to the barn where they knew it was warm and they were about to get brushed out and get an extra bit of grain. Man the runners on that sleigh hissed as if flew over the snow and they bells on their harnesses went from jingling to a constant single note that I thought we might outrun given the speed of the horses.
A couple of years down at the cousins Grandpa would have managed to lure a few deer into a temporary corral in his backyard. he would get them to venture in with a bit of hay and some corn. We would pretend they were Reindeer. The fence was never really high enough to hold them, but with free food in deep snow years they often stayed for a few days though they could have cleared the snow fence corral had they wanted. one year when I could not have been more than 5 we were able to hand feed them some deadfall apples. They seemed tame. When I was a few years older I realized they were starving, it had already been a hard winter by December. That year those deer stayed around until a January thaw, though they gate to the corral was always open. My Grandpa feed those things for nearly a month before they moved on.
