The Value Of The Gift

We exchanged gifts with Marie and Rolland on Christmas Eve afternoon when we finished with lunch. I didn’t even do dishes, surprise, surprise.

True to form, Marie made me a beautiful afghan. It was lovely with pink raised roses on a bed of white and blue. It will be a heirloom for me.
I bought, the optimum word is bought, her a beautiful turquoise velour outfit that goes beautifully with her white hair. Fran got her some jewelry. While she was unwrapping and inspecting her gifts she was very quiet. I was watching from across the room and went to her. I told her that one of her friends just loved the soft velour outfits and had three of them. She told me she had a closet full of clothes. (sigh)
Her last gift was thick and misshapen.. She felt of it and ripped the paper away, and said, “Now THAT I like!"
That gift cost a whole three dollars and in return I got a million dollar smile. One just never knows.

Maries Stories Are Fun

Marie was at our house for Christmas Eve lunch this year. We changed our Christmas lunch for several different reasons, but she was fine with it.
While we were eating I asked her to tell us stories of Christmas while she was a child. Oh, anyone that knows Marie, she was more than willing to tell stories.
One story was of Marie as a very small child going hunting with her father for the Christmas turkey. It was very cold, of course, because they lived in Massachusetts . The got two very big turkeys for dinner. They had a very large family therefore, it took two big birds.
I asked Marie if they had homemade gifts at Christmas time and she said that they did if they even had money for them.
As she got older and had children she had her children, boys also, knit caps and mittens for children that had none. She told the numbers and it was astronomical, but I forgot to write it down. She and the children worked and worked to have as many caps and mittens as they could to have gifts for the children.
She told many stories that day, but she veered off the Christmas stories. There will be more stories, more days
By the way she made this lovely Christmas Afghan herself.
I have no idea who has it now. One day it was just gone. The things that she made were most often given to her guests. Friends as well as family. Her family seldom ever left without something that she had made.

The Aubin Family

 Today I went to Marie’s house to visit. She was so excited she had gotten a picture of her whole family in the mail. The youngest child was Lucy; she was three months old. The youngest brother, Charlie was the blonde little boy sitting on the ground. Marie said this picture was taken in 1931. She was so excited I got tickled at her. She said, “Make sure you put this on the internet.”  And of course, I told her that I would.
I am going to name the children from left to right: Hector, Tony Bob, Lucy, Marie, Teresa, George, Jean, Joe, Pauline, and like I said, Charlie sitting on the ground.
I think they were a good looking crew.