A Gift

A birthday gift for Dad. I don't remember a birthday gift I gave him, but I do remember a Christmas gift. One year when we talked about what we wanted for Christmas, Dad said he just wanted a rake. A good old garden rake. He already had one, but that was his way of saying he didn't really need anything big. He kept saying he hoped he got a rake for Christmas. So I went to "Jones' Hardware Store" and bought a rake for him. But how do you wrap up a rake? I wanted him to have a gift he could unwrap. Because he was making such a big deal out of this rake he was wishing for, I wanted to make it "extra special" for him to unwrap. I took the newspaper and torn it into little thin strips and wrapped the strips around the tines of the rake, taping it up very carefully. Then I wrapped the strips around all the little parts of the rake, and around the handle. Then tied a big bow around the handle and put it in back of the tree, but where it was in full sight of everyone. It looked just like........a rake wrapped up in strips of paper. You didn't need an imagination of any kind. I didn't say anything at all about it, but waited to see what he did when he saw it. He came into the room and saw that rake leaning up against the wall and said something to the effect "Oh, may! Look! A present for me. I wonder what it is?" Then he kept guessing things like "a bread box?" "a hammer?" Very obviously not it. He kept this up for a long time. When Christmas morning came he was still pretending that he couldn't guess what the gift was. He sat there and wrapped every little strip of paper until he could "see" his gift! He sure did enjoy making us all laugh about his rake. He reminded me of it many times when he went out to rake his garden. He always got a kick out of that rake. Many times he tell me he didn't want to wish for a rake because he just might get it and have to unwrap it.

Happy Birthday, Dad! I hope you are enjoying a great time on your special day this year!