Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope you opened something handmade this morning. There was this article yesterday in the News and Observer about the trend towards the handmade and the author seemed to think that handmade gifts were suddenly okay; that they had been not okay at some point in the past. My family never got that memo. I found this photo recently and realized that I have been receiving handmade gifts my whole life. Those Paddington Bears? My mom made them, the clothes, too. Each had a tag that read "If found, please return to ...." and then the name of the child who's bear it was. They were jointed, I seem to remember. Those jammies may have been made by my mom, too. She is pretty crafty, maybe that's where I get it?

This photo was taken in our Coachman motor home. We took some really memorable trips in that thing, but not for the right reasons. You know how childhood memories get a gloss of wonder and joy over the years? King's Island? Seems better every year. Camping at Mammoth Cave? Loved it. I would do it again if I could. Long drive to Florida in the motor home? Well, uh...hmm...somehow in my mind Coachman is synonymous with broken down, crowded, noisy and badly decorated. Sorry, Coachman folks. I know you'd like me to get all dewey-eyed over the 4 inch by 6 inch 'spacious storage drawers' and those foam mattresses that were supposed to sleep two adults but barely accommodated me and my 4 foot sister but I can't. I keep remembering the time the windshield wipers broke at night in a rainstorm and my dad had to drive at about five miles an hour to try to get us off the highway. Or the thousands of times that the a/c didn't work. The best thing about the Coachman was the 8-track player. It worked. We listened to and sang along with the Oak Ridge Boys, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rodgers no matter how the vehicle was running. This was pre-seat belt laws, too, so all three of us kids sat in the front seat or, more accurately, leaned wayyy out on the wide dashboard and watched the miles tick away...

Come to think of it, the Coachman wasn't that bad.

Merry Christmas!