Monday memory....

Back in the day....

Long before there was "online" shopping, there was catalog shopping.  I can recall the excitement as a child of perusing for hours the Sears Christmas catalog, making out my list for Santa.

When my own children were growing up, I discovered and relied heavily upon the Spiegel catalog.  There wasn't a store attached to it, like Sears, but they seemed to always have in stock items, especially of the toy nature, which seemed in short supply in our local shops.  Think Cabbage Patch dolls, back in the Eighties.

Unlike shoppers of today, my ordering took place over the telephone, not on a computer. After giving all the pertinent information to the Customer Service Representative, I simply waited for the items to arrive.

Via the iconic brown truck, with the friendly driver.

What a treasure my local UPS driver, Ted, turned out to be!  He was sort of the "Elf" that helped make Christmas one in which secrets and surprises were kept until little girls excitedly crowded around the tree on Christmas morning.

Ted liked to back his huge truck up our driveway, then toot the horn to let me know he had arrived with goodies.  Not only did this greeting summon whichever dog was currently residing under our roof, it often brought curious children to the window.  

Knowing this, Ted came up with a plan to deal with holiday deliveries.  He would wait until I raised the garage door and then look to see if there were little ones beside me. If not, he would hand over the various boxes and bags after obtaining my signature on his clipboard.

If there were wee ones about, he would stack packages in such a way as to hide any identifiable markings.  Or he would comment, "Looks like the gifts for the cousins have arrived" if they were too difficult to conceal. One time, because I wasn't at home when he arrived and the photo glued to every side of one rather large package would have divulged its contents, he found a way to tuck it behind the bushes on the side of the house.  He then placed several boxes around it as added protection and left me a note, explaining his subterfuge.

Thanks to Ted, this once young, harried mother of three, was able to secretly gather together the presents needed to create magic on Christmas morning.