Advent Calendar - Christmas Gifts

Geneabloggers is once again hosting the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories encouraging family historians to write about their holiday traditions.

Judging by the number of gifts under our tree any given year, we’re a selfish and greedy bunch.  But let me defend my family here.  When we were growing up, Christmas was when we got ALL our new clothes for the year.  We didn’t shop a little here and a little there throughout the year.  I don’t know why that was – it just was.

When my sister and I became adults and were on our own, our parents continued to give us many presents at Christmas.  And believe it or not, Santa continued to bring a stocking.  However, our stocking was no longer a stocking.

It was a shopping bag.  A big one.

Mary gets a cocktail shaker.
The bag is always adorned with a special new ornament too.

The bag could be filled with any variety of goodies from hand lotion to earrings to slippers to kitchen gadgets to underwear to frying pans.  Many years we got underwear and a frying pan.  Shopping bag gifts are not necessarily small nor necessarily cheap.

Yumm -- a Vera Bradley wallet!

After our parents passed away, my sister and I decided to continue the Shopping Bag tradition because that was truly our most anticipated gift to open on Christmas morning.  What would be in that bag?  Some flavored coffee?  New gardening gloves?  A piece of our china?  Vintage pillow cases?  A bell jar?  Maybe underwear and a frying pan.