Twyla Tuesday

I wanted to tell you about my favorite Christmas present. I received it Christmas 2005. First I will fill you in on the backstory.

When I was a little girl I rode the school bus. There was a girl we picked up who one day got on carrying a Beatle lunch box. I was very shy, but my desire for that lunch box got the best of me so I asked her, ‘Can I have your lunch box?’ She said, ‘I’ll have to ask my mom.’ This went on every day for so long that I finally was too embarrassed to ask her anymore. I continued to watch her get on every day just so I could stare at it.

All those years, you’d think I would have run onto a Beatles lunch box somewhere, but I never spotted one.

We have a special ‘Christmas’ with my best friend, Susan every year. Christmas 2005 was just another fun evening my kids and I showering Susan with gifts. She doesn’t have a family so we like to let her have the joy of gifts and she is more like our family anyway. This year I had three presents from her. She told me I could pick any one of them to open first. I opened one and pulled out a little blue cap. I put my face in my hands and I bawled like a baby. I knew Exactly what was in the other two presents just from seeing that blue cap that was the top of the thermos. Susan and my two kids had gone together and found me a beautiful original Beatles lunch box with the thermos on ebay. I’ve told this story many times since and I still, yes, even now cannot tell it without crying. No present ever has or ever will mean as much to me as this gift that I waited 40 years to receive.

This year our presents are all wrapped and we are wrapped in the warm glow of Christmas. We have our ‘Christmas’ with Susan this Friday night.

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. – Burton Hillis

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas,