Love Santa

I was thinking recently about Christmas gifts from years past. What do I remember receiving from Santa? Here are a few of my favorite things:

My blue bike when I was about 5 (training wheels included of course!) and it would be when I lived in NY when I took off down the sidewalk sans those training wheels.

I unearthed some Christmas morning photos from 1984 and that year I got a Cabbage Patch kid (she had brown hair), Cabbage Patch Kids roller skates, Rainbow Brite and a little rainbow house for her and her pals, Alphie a talking robot, and Strawberry Shortcake boots.

The Duck Pond

It was dubbed "the park that Grandpop took us to" for as long as I can recall. My grandpop and grandmom came to visit us on Long Island and discovered this amazing park with a big ol' pond where there were tons of ducks. We had loaves of bread and sat there for what seemed like hours just chucking bits of bread at the ducks. I was probably 7 or 8 so my sister was about 6, brother about 4 and youngest brother about 2 and we loved it. Afterwards my grandparents would take us out for pizza - Sicilian style (something I thought was purely NY until we moved away) and grandpop would proceed to dump tons of hot pepper flakes all over his pizza. He swore up and down until the day he passed that the pizza he got on Long Island was the best pizza ever. I was only 14 when he passed but between the duck pond, the yummy Italian meals we'd share and all of us diving for pennies in his basement, I have the fondest memories of him. Now I look at my dad and he's the spitting image of his father.