Whose Present Is Whose?

It was always exciting at our house before Christmas. Somehow Mom and Dad always managed to get Ralph and I at least a couple of presents that we really, really wanted. Of course, we helped them out...by circling what we wanted in the "Sears and Roebuck Christmas Wishbook" and the "Montgomery (Monkey) Ward Christmas Catalog"! Every now and again, they would surprise us by getting something totally off the list, like the year Dad bought me my first hunting knife. An Edge Brand, "Original Buffalo Skinner"! We were blessed with wonderful parents!

One of the great things about having presents under the tree, was trying to figure out what was in your present. To do this, you would use at least four of the five senses. You would squeeze the present (touch), shake it (hearing), size it up (sight) and in desperation, sniff around on it (smell). Taste? Let me tell you, all Christmas wrapping paper tastes just about the same...trust me...

However, the real big question at the Riggs house was "whose present was whose?".  You say "Just look at the tag dummy!" It weren't that simple... My Mom had this little game she played every year...No tags on any of our presents! But...Just because there were no tags didn't mean she did not know whose was whose. Somewhere on the gift, in microscopic handwriting... letters so small you would need a magnifying glass to read them...was "Ray" or "Ralph". Needless to say, you don't want to waste time analyzing the WRONG gift! So...we would go over every gift with a "fine tooth comb!" Every fold, every corner, on every pattern on the paper, until we found our name (or our brother's name).

Sometimes though, this plan would backfire. I do remember times when we were passing out gifts, we would come to one that had no tag and that we hadn't found our names on. "Whose is this one Mom?" we'd ask. "Let me see it" she'd say. She would search all over the present for the name, puzzle around counting the gifts... "Now Ralph has three... Ray has three... Dad has two...hmmm....Let me look at it again". She would finally get it figured out and somebody got another gift. It was her "way" and it did make things more challenging... and it makes for good memories now!