Page 49 2024 Home For The Holidays Lincoln Daily News JA Hodgdon-Ruppel My parents always made sure each one of us felt special, each of us were equals and was always shown love, regardless of the time of year or occasion. But one of the most sacred memories I have was of our very own “Christmas Shopping Day.” You might be saying, “so what?,” this is the season where everyone goes shopping! I come from a family of fi ve, my parents and a sister fi ve years older and a sister four years younger. After Thanksgiving, we would spend the whole day getting all the boxes out of the basement, carrying them upstairs to ooh and aah over old ceramic Christmas trees and ornaments from the past. Keep in mind, this was an all-day project, fi lled with laughter, leftovers, and love. After all the boxes were empty and all the decorations were out, we shut off the house lights and admired our work. It was now time for the last piece of the puzzle which was to add the Angel to the top of the decorated Christmas tree . Every year we would rotate between the three of us in putting the angel on top of the tree and then the discussion would turn to our “Christmas Shopping Day.” My mom was the creative one and spearheaded this eff ort, could have been with or without my father’s knowledge, but he participated in a very willing manner, year after year, x3. What this meant was that each one of us girls would pick a town we wanted to go to and a place in that town to eat with mom. This was a benefi t of living in Lincoln, because we had so many towns encircling us. What this meant for my dad was that he was on dinner duty that night with the two other girls. On my particular day, I remember the excitement all day because I knew what the discussion would be with my mom. She would start out by asking where we were going to eat and what presents did I wanted to get for my two sisters and my dad. Of course at the same time, that evening, my dad was spending time with the other two girls by taking them out to get that special gift for our mother and then heading home to wrap it, get it under the tree all in secret because we were sure that our mom had no idea what we were doing. Continued --
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzExODA=