Wow, where has the time gone? It is only one week until Santa’s arrival. I came across this picture yesterday. It made me smile, as it reminded me of myself as a youngster. The look on this little girl’s face is priceless as she wonders about the mystery present and its contents. I am sure all of you wrap presents and place them under the tree and as Christmas Day nears, the gaily-wrapped gifts are often eyeballed and examined many times by the soon-to-be lucky recipient. That’s just a small part of the joy of the Christmas exchange of gifts, and our small family was no different. It sure wasn’t hard to guess when a doll-sized box or a flat Barbie case was wrapped up and laying under the tree. But my parents were also ingenious for wrapping presents in bigger boxes as decoys to thwart my inquisitive fingering of the gift, then guessing ahead of time, thus ruining their surprise. One year, when I was nigh into my twenties, a box about 8 X 8 inches square suddenly was plunked atop the other presents just a few days before Christmas. The gift tag said “To Linda: Something you always wanted. ~ Love, Mom and Dad” … well, my curiosity was piqued and I shook and rattled the package over and over based upon that message. The contents rattled around, not unlike uncooked macaroni in a box, and I could discern items which slid back and forth as I turned it every which way. On Christmas morning, we always opened our presents in a round-robin fashion and it was always my turn first since I was “the baby”. You can bet that I grabbed up that present, tore into the paper and ripped it off the box which to my surprise contained a miniature farm set. When I was growing up, the neighborhood where we lived was full of little girls all about my age. Of the many children in the cul-de-sac, there were only two boys and they were younger brothers of my two girlfriends. We girls all played together, rotating from house to house, sharing young girl secrets and pushing our dollies in their prams along the gravel road of Sandmere Place. My best friend, Linda Crosby, lived next door. Her younger brother received a farm set one year for his birthday. There were multiple buildings – a quaint home with a huge porch, a big red barn for the animals, a rustic brown barn which housed the farm equipment and many pieces of split-rail fence that encircled the “property”. There were farm animals of every type roaming within the confines of the property and there was even a small family and a speckled dog with a mangy tail. Steven would play endlessly with this farm set while I was at Linda’s house and I decided I wanted one of my own. My great grandfather owned a farm in Guelph, Ontario but I don’t remember visiting it since he died and the farm was sold when I was just a toddler, so the whim to have a farm set was not heritage based, but strictly desired by me as I watched Steven playing happily for hours on the floor with his farm set. My parents pooh-poohed the idea of playing with a farm set – I was a girl after all! “You have your Etch A Sketch, Pick-Up-Sticks and Tinker Toys to play with if you get bored with your dolls or your dollhouse, but a farm set is for boys” they told me. I didn’t whine or become petulant about their decision since my parents were very strict regarding my behavior, and, though I was just a kid, such childish temper tantrums or pouting were not permitted by their only child, so I sucked it up and resigned myself that I’d never have a farm set to call my own. So, imagine my surprise to find over a decade later that this much-coveted toy was finally mine. It was the fodder for a good laugh that Christmas morning and now is just another fond memory to share with you in this magical season. I hope you get everything you are wishing for this Christmas.