2 Days of Christmas Memories

My parent's farm was in rather remote valley that wasn't particularly near to anywhere urban. I've said to friends that it was 90 miles to K-Mart. And it still is. So, the big thrill signaling the beginning of the Christmas Crave season was the arrival of the Toy Catalogs. J.C. Penney, Sears, and Montgomery Ward all had a special Christmas catalog that arrived sometime in November that had pages and pages of toys. We'd pore over the slick pages of these tomes and dream and covet. I remember marking them, circling the EXACT thing I wanted. I don't know how much of our Christmas my mom ordered from them, but I rarely got the exact items I'd lusted for. Mostly though, my gifts were wonderful and I loved them all. I do remember really, really wanting the book Album of Horses by Margaret Henry and not getting it. But I recovered from that disappointment. I barely remember any of my childhood gifts except for the cupboard my grandpa made. I see from photos that I always received a new doll, lots of toy dishes and other girlish things. I don't feel I was too programed, because I did grow up and become a good cow milking/horse riding/hay hauling farm girl. I did get a Barbie (finally) at age 11 and my sister sewed me an entire wardrobe of fabulous clothes for it. I still have that Barbie and her clothes. My own daughters got a Barbie at about 5 years old from grandma, but that Barbie met an untimely death at the hands of GI Joe and was buried in an unmarked grave in our yard in San Diego. I didn't replace her. We went with My Little Pony mostly. They seemed to be able to hold their own against the Joes.