Thumbprint cookies, The Hardy Boys and Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots

     With all the sadness in the news the past few days, I turned to my version of mental comfort food: happy memories. 
     One of my favorite memories was always Christmas baking day. We didn't have a lot of sweet stuff around our house most of the time, but the week before Christmas was one big sugar-rush bacchanal. Mom made two different kinds of fudge, divinity, no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies, jello candies with powdered sugar and frosted cookies in the shape of trees and angels. All that was fine, but for me, the highlight was the thumbprint cookies.
     I remember jumping off the bus after the last day of school before Christmas break and running into the house, hoping she hadn't finished with the thumbprint cookies. "Of course not" she would always say. "My thumbs are too big. I had to wait for yours." Pushing my thumb down into the soft dough so Mom could spoon the jelly in meant that the Christmas season had finally arrived. 
     We always opened our presents on Christmas morning, but we were allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve, as long as it wasn't our "big gift." Our "big gift" was probably different from what kids get today. I remember getting an electric football game one year and a Hot Wheels track another. In retrospect, it's hard to believe how the electric football game worked, which was like this: You arranged all your men on a metal playing field then hit a switch that made the whole thing vibrate like a bed in a cheap Vegas motel. Much excitement ensued, but none of it resembled a football game in any way.
     In any case, one year I had been examining one particular package under the tree for weeks. It was shaped like a mysterious pyramid and was oddly heavy. I knew that would be my Christmas Eve present. The moment when the adults were finally ready to abandon their hot toddies and buttered rums finally arrived and my nephew Tommy and I ran to the tree to pluck out our identical presents. Before I ripped off the wrapping, Mom stopped me with a cluck and a shake of her head. "Why don't you pick out a different one for tonight?" I was sure she was discouraging me because I had picked the most awesome gift under the tree and she wanted me to save it for morning. 
     Tommy and I both tore into the paper at the exact same moment, only to reveal... a bird feeder made out of a Clorox Bleach bottle and filled with bird seed. I made a mental note to trust Mom's advice about what presents to open on Christmas Eve from then on. The next morning, Tommy and I both opened another set of identical boxes. Inside each one was four brand new Hardy Boys books. 

     Forty years later, when I think of happy Christmas memories, I think of laying upside down on our couch, resting my head on the floor, reading my Hardy Boys books.
     Then there is the Christmas wish that went unfulfilled. The Christmas of my eleventh year, all I really cared about was getting Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots. If you're not familiar with this toy, it was a small boxing ring with two robots inside. Each player controlled their own robot and tried to "knock the block off" the other robot. That was it. There were no levels, no bosses, no strategy. But man, I wanted it.
     Sure enough, a week or so before Christmas, a box that was the perfect size to hold Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots appeared under the tree. I spent every night leading up to Christmas playing the game in my dreams. I'd never even touched one, but in my own mind I was already a Rock 'Em Sock 'Em champeen. 
     That Christmas we had enough family to rent the hall in Mossyrock for our celebration. My half dozen or so gifts were set in front of me - a baseball, some new Hot Wheels, a giant candy cane - but I only had eyes for the big box with the battling robots inside. When it was finally set in front of me, I tore into it like the secrets of the universe were inside. I flipped the box open, and... there was a new winter coat. Time froze for a moment, as I tried to mentally transform the blue corduroy into the colorful plastic of the robotic boxing ring. When the coat refused to budge out of its reality, I looked up and caught the eye of my Mom. She shrugged a little and mouthed "Sorry" from across the room. My perspective shifted at that moment, and I saw things from her side. I knew that I had outgrown my old coat, and I knew money was tight. I saw things from her side.  I smiled a small smile and mouthed back "It's OK" with a shrug of my own.
     Then I saw that my brother-in-law Dick had brought his guitar and was singing "The Green Green Grass of Home" as a prelude to the Christmas Carols that were to come. I always loved that song, especially when he sang it, because he changed the words around and made it funny. I wandered over to listen (and join in, much to the chagrin of people with functioning ears) and soon forgot about the robots that had been the most important thing in my world a few minutes earlier. My big gift that year was  the ability to handle a small disappointment without making it bigger than it is. That was a good gift, almost as good as those Hardy Boys mysteries.