When I was young, I never had a special Christmas gift that I dreamed of and was crazy about. I know I 1 a lot of great Christmas presents as I grew up. Chatty Cathy, Baby Thumbelina, Little Miss No Name...I just don't remember opening them. Although my parents had their financial 2, they always made Christmas 3for their four children. Dad worked a(n) 4 job as a referee in high school basketball games to 5 a little more cash, and Mum was the queen of bargain shopping. The gifts may have been inexpensive, but there was more than enough under the tree.
Stored in happy memories are the family 6: helping Mum and Dad drag the Christmas decorations out of the attic (阁楼), going with Dad to 7 the tree from the Kiwanis, and8the tree with strings of blue lights and Christmas lasting days and days and days. The piles of 9 under our tree packed in newspaper are more memorable than what was packed. The act itself of unpacking and 10 seeing what was beneath the newspaper was 11 and memorable. But the most clear are the images of smiles, the sounds of 12, not the images of toys or clothes.
It's the 13 of Christmas. The best moments, the happy moments were not the gifts, but the togetherness, the love of family. Even in the14 quarrels of brothers and sisters, even in the tiredness of late nights, even in the sometime stress of it all.
Christmas should not centre on what's on our gift lists. For it's not about what gifts we 15 or receive, but about what we do, what we experience.
Those are the happy moments that matter.
