A Christmas Story

Christmas morning at our house when I was growing up went like this:

We could not wake Mom and Dad up too early, so my oldest brother went down to the living room to get the stockings. He would come back with reports of what he saw. We opened the stockings and ate the nuts and fruit, complained about the coal in the toe of the stocking and opened the small gifts.

At about 7 or 8 ( I can’t remember what the appropriate time was), Mom and Dad got up and we were allowed to go downstairs. We opened gifts and then ate a big breakfast.

This particular Christmas morning, we opened gifts as usual and when Mom opened her gift from Dad it was a box of Fanny Farmer Chocolates (do any of you remember Fanny Farmer?). When she announced it was time to eat breakfast, we all protested. We told he we wanted chocolates. She said no, but we insisted (just one chocolate then we’ll eat breakfast, we promise), so finally she took off the Fanny Farmer Chocolate wrapper and opened the box. In the center of the chocolates, a few chocolates had been removed and a small box was in their place. My Dad had bought her a new ring and brought it to the candy store to have it placed in the box of chocolates, then the clerk wrapped the box as usual.

My Mom still has that ring.