Making a Christmas Card: Keeping a Christmas Memory

 

Making a Christmas Card:  Keeping a Christmas Memory of the Best Gift

 

by Alice Jane-Marie Massa

 

 

By making my own Christmas card for 2012, I was able to keep a Christmas memory of the best gift which I ever received.  I highly recommend sharing such a memory fashioned into a Christmas card because I received more positive, nice comments about this Christmas card than any other card I have ever sent.  The comments from family members and friends across the miles gave me holiday smiles that lasted into the new year of 2013. 

 

When my cousin Carole came from Florida for a visit from late November to early December of last year, we went to a local mall and let my current Leader Dog, Zoe, enjoy having her photo taken with the nicest Santa.  Thus, I wanted this festive photo on the front of my card; and a photo of Prince, the pet dog about whom you will read shortly, on the inside of the card.  After I wrote the greetings and copy for the card, my cousin Carole was in charge of paste-up onto a master, as well as the photocopying.  “Jolly Holidays!” and “HO!  HO!  Ho!” were the greetings that were sprinkled around the photo of Zoe and Santa Claus.  The inside photo was one that I had taken in 1967.  I had placed a white throw rug over a round foot stool, which measured about 24 inches in diameter; wearing a red coat which I had made, Prince sat perfectly posed for this photo when he was five years old.  With this old photograph appeared the following text inside my 2012 Christmas card:

 

 

            Fifty years ago this Christmas Eve, I received the best Christmas gift ever.  The gift endured for seventeen and a half years, and the sweet memory of this gift continues to sparkle.

 

            By 1962, my paternal grandparents were no longer residing on the farm in Klondyke, Indiana: they had moved to the more modern house which was a short distance from our home in Blanford, Indiana.  On that Christmas Eve, while everyone—my grandparents, Uncle Charlie, my mother, my sister and I—gathered in the living room of my grandparents’ home, my dad went into the basement.  A few minutes later, midst all the chatter, he returned with a small cardboard box.  At the perfect moment, a tiny puppy popped his head up from the box and displayed a wide, red, satin ribbon tied around his neck in a partial bow.  Surprise!  My puppy for Christmas!  The Toy Manchester/Chihuahua was black with a white stripe on his chest and a little white on three paws.

 

            Having lost Little Prince, my beagle/terrier mix, that October, I had been unhappily dogless for almost three months and was really needing a dog.  Unbeknownst to me, my dad had selected the Toy Manchester/Chihuahua puppy for me two weeks earlier.  My grandparents had kept the puppy until Christmas Eve; years later, I learned that they were somewhat sad to relinquish the puppy. 

 

            On that first cold night when we left my grandparents’ house, I tucked my Christmas puppy into my rust-colored coat so that only his tiny face peaked out.  In his new home that first night, my new puppy whimpered—despite the ticking clock covered with a blanket that we placed in his bedding.  So, eventually, I decided I should sleep on the floor with the wonderful puppy.  Within a couple of days, I named the pup Little Prince II; but we called him “Prince.” 

 

            As I look back fifty years to this most treasured gift from my cherished father, I look ahead to next July 11, which will mark the 100^th anniversary of my dad’s birth. 

 

            Since June 6, 2009, I have been blessed with another dog who is black—my third Leader Dog, Zoe, who continues to be an amazing guide and dear companion.

 

 

May the gifts of Christmas

 

bring you

 

sweet memories,

 

a happy present,

 

and a healthy new year!

 

 

With our warmest holiday wishes,

 

Alice and Zoe

 

December 11, 2013, Wednesday blog post

 

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