Two More Christmas Memories

One of these memories is my daughter’s, and the other one is mine.

When my daughter was about eight or nine, I took her to New York City on a Christmas Eve. New York City was about three hours by train from Springfield, Massachusetts. My daughter skated at the famous ice rink at Rockefeller Center. It was a like a Christmas card scene to see all the skaters there gliding around the rink. There may even have been snow falling. Lauren had a skating lesson with a great instructor who made her feel like she was a great skater. Even now she will marvel at what a graceful skater she was that one night but somehow has never been so graceful since.

"Rockefeller Center is touted as city within a city and it is not an exaggeration.

This Art Deco complex consists of 19 office and commercial buildings covering

11 acres in midtown Manhattan. The Rock, as it is affectionately called, also houses a maze of shops, restaurants and beautiful artworks in one form or another, with the famous Atlas and Prometheus statues gracing the façade. The Channel Gardens are filled with flowers in the summer, and the Plaza is turned into a skating rink in the winter

"The Ice Rink opens daily at 8 AM through December 31st

The Ice Rink closes daily at Midnight, excluding New Year's Eve

Monday,December 31st - New Year's Eve. The Ice Rink will close at 9 PM

Tuesday, January 1st - Happy New Year - The Ice rink will open at 9 AM.

The last day for the Christmas Tree is Tuesday, January 8, 2008"

To see real-live photos of people skating at Rockerfeller Center, go to you tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oqPtREwLlM

And now we come to one more of my personal memories:

As you know, my parents had a grocery store and meat market. In those days, nothing was pre-packaged. Chickens, for instance, came fresh. In those days, I don’t think you could buy just legs or thighs and wings separately. I could be wrong, but what I remember is that you had to buy a whole chicken, and my father would gladly cut it up for you if that was what you wanted.

Otherwise, once a whole chicken had been purchased, my father would wrap it up in butcher’s paper, and tie the package together with string. As you can imagine, you would see the shape of wings and legs bulging out.

Margaret, the sixteen-year old girl who took care of us, took me with her to her parents’ home on Christmas Eve. Christmas was tremendously important to the Gumlaws. The house was crowded with people. As poor as they were, they always managed a gift for me.

When I was about four, Margaret’s family presented me with a present wrapped in tissue paper. The gift was not boxed, and you could see the shape of what was inside. Margaret's stepmother said to me, “Can you guess what it is?"

I thought and kept looking at the package they held up. I saw all the bulges.

Finally I said, “A chicken!"

Of course, it was a doll baby, and everyone had a good laugh. I turned red while someone explained my history and how it was that I would guess a chicken when any ordinary child would know it was a doll.