Thou shalt not covet my husband’s Christmas gift…

For years my church had a Santa Sale each year.  Folks from other churches would collect things all year to bring us.  A lot of what we got was stuff people had gotten themselves but didn’t like, or things that had sat around unused, but all of it was nice and the most important thing was volume.  On the appointed Sunday afternoon, kids from the neighboring housing project could line up outside and we would let in a group of 10 at a time to go up into the room where the sale items were.  They could select 5 items to buy for 10 cents each.  The sweetest thing was how hard they would look for just the right gift.  Almost always they wanted to get all five gifts for their mother….or for themselves.  Then they would bring their gifts downstairs where lots of folks from the church were standing ready to wrap their gifts for them.  And boy we had some difficult stuff to wrap, but we managed to send each child and their five wrapped gifts on their way as 10 more kids were about to come down with their selections.  We did the same sale for Mother’s Day.   Now when the neighborhood kids had all come and gone,  there would still be a truckload of stuff, and kids from the church would be allowed the same privilege- 5 gifts for 10 cents each. For most of those years I didn’t have kids so I got to “help” other church kids make their selections.  When my pastor was about 11 months pregnant, her little boy selected a set of those barbells that you got on your knees and rolled  out in front of you to tighten up your abs.  No talking him out of it.  So, it was with great joy and curiosity that DH and I unwrapped OUR gifts purchased by our little girls the first year we had them.   Mine was in a nice Christmas liquor bottle box, and was a collection of small things like a container of hand creme and some gloves.  But DH won the Santa Sale lottery……..one of the girls gave him……a ten commandment bracelet.  Gold. And in yet another moment that gives testimony to what a great dad he is, he put it right on and wore it around the house for a while.  And then for years it was safely kept in his nightstand drawer, just a sweet reminder of those little girls at their cutest. Made for a great Christmas memory!