I was a peculiar child. Peculiar in that bookwormy, writery, reading-absolutely-everything-I-could kind of way. I’m guessing that I’m amongst similarly peculiar friends here on the blogosphere.
We – my sister and I – always had lots of presents at Christmas, but the ones that stand out the most are the strange ones, the ones that were slightly bizarre. The ones that indulged my peculiarity.
And the year that Father Christmas brought me a crisp brown envelope with 50 sheets of brand new white paper in it.
We used to have loads of paper all the time; pastel colours with typing on the back that was someone else’s scrap. It was kept in a box in the store room, and the box never ran out of paper so we always had more than we needed.
But we never had our very own paper that no-one had written on and was absolutely untouched. And so I asked Father Christmas to bring me some and he did. Because I’m guessing I was somewhere around nine or ten years old and he’d probably realised by then that my weird side was there to stay.
I don’t remember what I did with the paper, whether I wrote anything particularly worthy on it or whether I was frivolous with it. I suspect that I treated it very carefully and used it sparingly.
I do remember, though, carrying it around with me on Christmas morning. We used to tour around visiting people, and we used to take some of our favourite presents with us.
I remember proudly carrying my envelope of paper around, with the cooler and more ordinary members of the family looking at me ever so strangely as I explained that it was paper – fabulous, brand new, all my very own, ordinary white paper.
I couldn’t really understand why no-one seemed quite so thrilled as I was.
“The Best Gift Ever” is one of this week’s writing prompts from Mama Kat over at Mama’s Losin’ It
The childhood present that always sticks in my mind was a shoe box of scissors, biros, plain white stickers, plain white paper and Sellotape given to us by a wise old woman. Had never owned any of these before – only borrowed. Now, if I want to thrill a child, I speed past Toys R Us and make for our local Rymans. You are far from alone in your peculiarity!
You’ve conjured the picture of an adorable, dreamy child. And I get it – I would have loved paper (or, better, a typewriter) rather than the selection of dolls I always received.
—I understand.
I adore clean white paper…
It seems as though it is just begging to be smeared w/ inky words! x
Wow, you sure were easy to please!
Here’s mine: http://karenzemek.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-favoirte-gift-ever-and-more-writers.html
Totally get that!
I get it. I love perfectly white paper. And then I love writing on it. Changing it forever with my thoughts.
I was a peculiar child too.
New white paper! A great, vast canvas waiting for your imagination to bring to life. What an awesome gift!
I get it because it was special to you, unique and YOURS. And perhaps it helped you to perfect the craft you would go on to do as a blogger.
Amazing how something so simple can be so treasured! I love journals but never seem to be able to touch one of their pages with a pen. Happy Holidays!
Isn’t it amazing, to think back on our childhood and find that one meaningful thing that is actually one of the simplest? My oldest is peculiar, and I treasure it. I allow her to embrace it. And, like you, she treasures paper. She writes and draws. And a sketch pad and notebook all her own, with patterned and plain paper and a box of colored pencils to boot? I think Christmas would be done for her with that one gift alone.