Recycling Christmas

Today's title is the Holidailies Writing Prompt. OK, what does this writing prompt actually mean?

As anyone who reads this probably knows this is my 28th day of Holidailies. The portal, so expertly run by Jette and Chip, provides access to lots of journals (blogs, online diaries, whatever) whose owners are trying to write every day from December 1 to January 1. They recruited a panel to read and nominate 'best of' entries. You can check out the sites as they are updated or from a listing that provides access to all the registered entries in a variety of ways. It's been a great bunch of reading for me. I even drifted away from my trusty old reads (Bunt Sign, MyBeloved Monster, Not Calm dot Com and Journal of a Writing Man) for a while although I did come back and catch up. (I found the Writing Man posting video, too.)

Anyway, back to the writing prompt. The aforementioned portal has another feature this year. Writing prompts. In case you really want to write but just can't get started. Contributors were encouraged to submit them. I did submit some. And now, here is one I submitted and I have no idea what to do with it.

Should I write about regifting? About reusing wrapping materials? About trotting out antique decorations that have a sentimental value? About making Christmas decorations out of old AOL CDs? About sending the live tree off to be mulched for Armadillo Dirt? (I don't have a live tree but the city picks up my yard waste for this.)

What I decided was to talk about a Christmas long ago. I'm going to say three decades ago. I can place it in time because my nieces were young, around six and eight. And yes they are 36 and 38 today. The whole immediate family (including my sister's family and my parents) came to Austin for Christmas which was a rare thing indeed. A bunch of us decided that it was going to be a 'secondhand' Christmas for exchanging gifts. Even some of the extended family got in on this. We were allowed to make a gift or give something we already owned or bought pre-owned (at a garage sale or secondhand place). It was a memorable Christmas. My old maid aunts sent me the Aluminum glasses they'd used for iced tea for decades and which I loved. I gave my nieces each a suede purse. The purses were given to my sister and I when we were small by one of our aunts. For some reason I'd kept both of them all those years. I bought secondhand books for my brother-in-law and Dad and wrapped them in maps I bought at the secondhand book store for a quarter. My in-laws got in on the spirit of the thing and gave my nieces some sparklers they bought at a garage sale for a nickel. The kids had the best time playing with those in the driveway with their father, safety Bill we called him, supervising.

The family has threatened for years to reinstate the secondhand Christmas where you make regifting an art. But we've never pulled it off. I still have the aluminum glasses, though. They remind me of that Christmas and of sitting in the back yard at my aunts' house (which was my favorite place as a kid) with a cool drink that was making beads of sweat on the metal glass. I never use them. But I haven't been able to get rid of them. The color is mostly worn away. But they are fraught with memory.