A Simple Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Mike Huckabee
which I got sloppy in more ways than one. My requested gift that year was a new football. Like most of what we received at Christmas, it would be ordered from one of three Christmas catalogs that came to our houseâSears, Montgomery Ward, and J. C. Penney.
After school, football fairly well dominated the afternoons for the kids of our neighborhood during the fall football season. Weâd gather on the vacant field behind my grandparentsâ house and play until it was so dark that the football hit us in the face because we couldnât see it anymore.
My parents bought me my requested gift that yearâa brown leather J.C. Higgins football from Sears. It was a nice ball, and I was excited to use it. My friends and I always hoped that at least one of us got a new football each year, because it usually took us about that long to wear the old one out. This was the first year that I was getting the football, and given that it was my first really official, regulation-sized, leather football, I was pretty proud of it and could hardly be expected to wait until Christmas Day to play with it. Heck, the season would end pretty soon after that, and I couldnât think of any reason to miss out on a couple of prime weeks to enjoy such a great gift.
Each day, Pat and I would hurry home from school and she would go to work like a skillful surgeon removing the tape and paper, and weâd spend the afternoon playing with our new stuff until it was time to put everything back where weâd gotten it before our parents got home.
The year I got my football, I was so excited to use it that I guess one day our game ran a little late and I wasnât as careful as I should have been when I had to put the ball away. I just knew that when I opened my presents on Christmas Day and tore into the box with the football, all my now keenly developed acting skills would never mask the fact that my âbrand newâ football was covered in mud! I suggested that maybe it was a new marketing ploy by Sears to create a greater sense of reality by shipping the football with mud and dirt already on it. I admit that it was a pretty lame explanation, but I didnât have much to work with. With suspicions now aroused, further examination of our Christmas loot revealed a chemistry set with half the experiments already done and a doll with batteries not included that somehow had mysteriously been blessed with new batteries.
The jig was up. We almost had our gifts that year confiscated and sent to some kids in China. My parents had always told me, âEat every bite of food on that plate! There are kids in China who would be glad to have it, so you arenât going to waste it,â and as disappointed as I was at the prospect of having my gifts sent halfway around the world, I figured it was only fair that some little Chinese boy get my football, since Iâd been eating his food for years. I wasnât sure if he would even understand football, but I had learned my lesson! At any rate, my parents finally cooled off before they actually sent the toys to Shanghai. I actually think they thought it was kind of funny and even admired how incredibly resourceful Pat and I had turned out to be. I think they figured that with gall like that, weâd end up either running the country or in jail. Luckily, Iâve ended up closer to the former than the latter, and since Iâve since stopped unwrapping my Christmas gifts early, I hope it will stay that way.
I have to confess that, although I donât sneak open my presents anymore, I havenât really changed much. I still want to open stuff once itâs under the tree. I figure thereâs stuff there I might enjoy now, and if a truck were to run me over before Christmas Day, Iâd never even know what I got, never would have the pleasure of using it, and wouldnât have the opportunity to thank the person who got it for me. For years my wife has hidden presents so I
After school, football fairly well dominated the afternoons for the kids of our neighborhood during the fall football season. Weâd gather on the vacant field behind my grandparentsâ house and play until it was so dark that the football hit us in the face because we couldnât see it anymore.
My parents bought me my requested gift that yearâa brown leather J.C. Higgins football from Sears. It was a nice ball, and I was excited to use it. My friends and I always hoped that at least one of us got a new football each year, because it usually took us about that long to wear the old one out. This was the first year that I was getting the football, and given that it was my first really official, regulation-sized, leather football, I was pretty proud of it and could hardly be expected to wait until Christmas Day to play with it. Heck, the season would end pretty soon after that, and I couldnât think of any reason to miss out on a couple of prime weeks to enjoy such a great gift.
Each day, Pat and I would hurry home from school and she would go to work like a skillful surgeon removing the tape and paper, and weâd spend the afternoon playing with our new stuff until it was time to put everything back where weâd gotten it before our parents got home.
The year I got my football, I was so excited to use it that I guess one day our game ran a little late and I wasnât as careful as I should have been when I had to put the ball away. I just knew that when I opened my presents on Christmas Day and tore into the box with the football, all my now keenly developed acting skills would never mask the fact that my âbrand newâ football was covered in mud! I suggested that maybe it was a new marketing ploy by Sears to create a greater sense of reality by shipping the football with mud and dirt already on it. I admit that it was a pretty lame explanation, but I didnât have much to work with. With suspicions now aroused, further examination of our Christmas loot revealed a chemistry set with half the experiments already done and a doll with batteries not included that somehow had mysteriously been blessed with new batteries.
The jig was up. We almost had our gifts that year confiscated and sent to some kids in China. My parents had always told me, âEat every bite of food on that plate! There are kids in China who would be glad to have it, so you arenât going to waste it,â and as disappointed as I was at the prospect of having my gifts sent halfway around the world, I figured it was only fair that some little Chinese boy get my football, since Iâd been eating his food for years. I wasnât sure if he would even understand football, but I had learned my lesson! At any rate, my parents finally cooled off before they actually sent the toys to Shanghai. I actually think they thought it was kind of funny and even admired how incredibly resourceful Pat and I had turned out to be. I think they figured that with gall like that, weâd end up either running the country or in jail. Luckily, Iâve ended up closer to the former than the latter, and since Iâve since stopped unwrapping my Christmas gifts early, I hope it will stay that way.
I have to confess that, although I donât sneak open my presents anymore, I havenât really changed much. I still want to open stuff once itâs under the tree. I figure thereâs stuff there I might enjoy now, and if a truck were to run me over before Christmas Day, Iâd never even know what I got, never would have the pleasure of using it, and wouldnât have the opportunity to thank the person who got it for me. For years my wife has hidden presents so I