When I search my memory bank for what I remember about Christmas in my childhood, one memory always comes first. I was walking through the Ben Franklin dime store on my way home from school. It was a cold December day and I remember the way the wooden floor looked with melting bits of snow here and there turning into little puddles. The store had a number of aisles. I looked at the display of Matchbox cars. I looked at all the Christmas cookie tins. I walked to the display of books and there I found it! A science experiment book for kids. I looked through it and got more and more excited as I flipped through the pages. My brother was going to love this. In my memory there was only one of these books in the display. I held it tightly in my hand and wanted to jump up and down in excitement. I was 11, my brother was 8 and he loved to figure out how things worked. I knew that this would be a GREAT present for him.
In the intervening years since, my Christmas hope has been that I will again find a gift for someone in my family that will fill me with the same anticipation, excitement, and sheer joy that I felt in finding and buying that perfect gift for my brother.
