My Favorite Gift

For this weeks grapevine segment of the PCN, I asked a few people what their most memorable Christmas gift was.

I thought about this loaded question, and have decided to answer it for myself.

Sure I could say the year that my parents got me my first bike without training wheels. That was a great gift.

There was also that time my parents gave me a Nintendo 64 gaming system with a few games including Mario World 64.

While there was nothing greater than playing as Mario in his 3D world, that wasn’t it.

I remember one year, my parents got me a Stretch Armstrong.

I used to take that toy with me everywhere, but nope that wasn’t it.

One year while I was living in Florida, my parents gave me $100.

I’m not saying the money was my favorite present... Not by a long shot.

However when I was given that money, I thought to myself, I wanted to get something that may or may not mean something to my folks.

Ever since I started going to college in 2005, my mother always would say to me, “make sure you take plenty of pictures.”

The only problem was I didn’t have a legitimate camera.

So with that money I got my first point and shoot digital camera.

The camera that I purchased was a Fujifilm S700.

The great thing about the camera was that I was able to not only take pictures and video, but I was able to manipulate the camera, like some of the fancier cameras.

With that camera I took over 20,000 pictures.

I was able to not only share my world with my family, but whoever else cared to see my world on Facebook.

It came in handy for many ways including recording practices and shows, helping me to master my craft.

There may be a video or two of my old band on Youtube. Search Jaeltv.

Learning to manipulate a camera a few years ago is still helping me today.

I wouldn’t know squat about photography, if it weren’t for that gift.

Moving on... I am so glad that PJ is going to experience his first Christmas.

He will finally get to open the presents under the tree, which is a good thing, because I’m taking that tree down as soon as I can.

For the last few weeks, he has mastered the art of rolling.. To a fault.

He tries to get into everything, especially the presents under the tree.

His grandmother has had to re-tape presents under her tree almost everyday because of the young, persistent lad.

It goes against everything I’ve learned as a kid.

Between my wife and her mom and myself, I am the most annoyed with torn wrapping paper.

That is a match I lose every time, so I am going to publicly say that this year, I don’t care if he opens his gifts early.

Which again is against everything I stand for.

Backstory, as kids we didn’t open any presents until Christmas morning....

And everyone did it together...

It was torture as a kid. But so worth the wait.