The Best Gift of All

Nothing embodies the farm mentality more than the custom of exchanging gifts at Christmastime. We are accustomed to looking inward when it comes to acquiring some of the basics, like food, water and a source of heat. Therefore, it is a logical extension to want to do the same when it comes to expressing the Spirit of the Season in the form of exchanging gifts.

With this in mind, I followed up on a promotion featured on Face/Book from ReSnap, an outfit out of The Netherlands, to put into a photo album, the year 2017. There were 100 pages, each with five photos, and the overall effect was dazzling. 

I gazed at pics of Bell Springs Road, HappyDay Farms, the closeups of produce, the coast, the critters, the mountains, the snow, the flowers, the bees, the dogs, the sunrises/sunsets, and all of the quirky photos that I post.

I had this idea that I would print off a book for each of my three sons, and one for Gluten-Free Mama and me, so I ran it up the proverbial flagpole, to see what GF Mama thought. She was quite enamored with the idea, but suggested that if possible, maybe I could substitute a few photos from other sources to make the keepsake more personal.

It took a fair amount of tech savvy to accomplish this, with multiple setbacks, but over a three-week period of time, I customized the album to include photos of the boys growing up, more photos of the farm, especially the produce, and fewer generic pics of flowers. Both GF Mama and I were pleased with the result.

I ordered it online, had it delivered to the feed store down in the ‘Ville, and one of the boys picked it up for me on a routine run to town, so I never had to leave the mountain to accomplish my biggest gift.

No red bow required

So it was more about the gift of time, than it was about the actual cost of the photo albums. And of course, the photographs themselves required time. 

Along the same lines, was the gift delivered to me out in my front yard, in the form of two truckloads of bone-dry, seasoned oak, madrone and manzanita, much of it small enough to easily fit into the old Superior stove that heats our kitchen.

There can be no commodity more treasured during the winter on this mountain, than kitchen firewood delivered to your front door.  Again, it’s one thing to browse the mall and have your selections gift-wrapped; it’s quite another to put your back into your gift-giving. All three boys spent time over two days, chainsawing and hauling, to amass far more than that which was delivered to us.

I love that I can see Ellie Mae behind the steps....

My present to Dancing Girl was the labor I put into helping SmallBoy build a twelve-by-eight deck alongside their little home, here on the mountain, the week before Christmas. I added a set of four wide, gentle steps, each a foot deep and a mere six inches in height, so that getting into and out of their home would not be the challenge that it had been.

When Dancing Girl thanked me again for the thoughtful gift on Christmas morning, all I could say was that her health and welfare-and that of lil Dude due in March-were of the utmost importance to me and Gluten-Free Mama. 

When the boys’ Unc Salsa showed up on New Year’s Eve, for din-din and the 49ers’ win over the Rams, I was able to present to him a gift bag with a quart of cold-pack tomatoes, a couple of catsups, a couple of the smoked paprika catsups, some of the hot salsa and finally some of the hot salsa with the roasted peppers and cilantro. 

I woke up in the middle of the night (probably around midnight), though there has never been a sound at midnight here on the mountain, on NYE, and realized I had forgotten to include some of our marinara sauce. That’s OK; it will give us a good reason to go visit SalsaMan and his sweet wife, HeadBankLady, down in Ukiah.

An elephant-within-an-elephant

The gift of the See’s Chocolates (nuts and chews), the jigsaw puzzles and the little elephant-within-an-elephant, were a few of non-farm items I found under the tree, which I especially enjoyed.

From BossLady we received the best gift of all-that of her presence here on the mountain over the Holidays. It’s hard because all of her family is back East and she has strong ties. However, partly because her mama had been out here for Thanksgiving Day and a couple of weeks beyond, and partly for many other reasons, she opted to chill here on the mountain.

We celebrated Christmas day by providing for ourselves a meal made almost exclusively from that which we produced here on-farm, a most cherished gift. Finally, the boys all gifted their time over the two days, to spend it with their mama, who had requested that as her only present. 

We enjoyed an old-fashioned Christmas, and for once, we could not keep the beverages cold out on the front deck, it was that balmy outside. Whereas some folks might miss the white Christmas effect, what I did not miss was the treacherous footing, and the need to bring in firewood, incessantly.

No, I did not miss that at all. White Christmases are overshadowed by bright Christmases, and this was the brightest in recent memory.