Day 7 - Dad & the Angel

My dad gave me this angel in 1983, I think it was.  It was to celebrate my first tree in my first apartment.  Personally, I think the angel is pretty ugly as angels go - it’s got red glitter on it & the cardboard cone under her skirt shows.   I’m sure Dad bought it at the local drug store while making a cigarette run.  And Dad was color blind and insisted the red glitter was blue and that it looked like snow.  But I don’t care how ugly the angel is or how much Dad spent on her.  She’ll always be special to me because my dad picked it out himself.  

I have a totally different Christmas memory of Dad as well.  Dad and his Christmas lists.    I loved Dad’s lists. You could buy everything on it for under $5.  And it was detailed!  He would not only ask for a certain size nail or screw, but he’d ask for a certain number of them.  He’d have a project in mind and know that he needed eight screws and that’s what he’d ask for.  And you better bloody well not buy nine because that would be wasteful!  Index cards were another thing on the list.  Almost every year he asked for index cards.   Some Number 2 pencils and a package of pipe cleaners  were normally on the list as well.  The pipe cleaners had to be a special kind though - they weren’t the fuzzy, crafty kind.  Each year it became more & more difficult to locate the kind he wanted which added a bit of excitement to shopping for Dad.  And then there was the year he bought himself a Dremel.  That year, he asked for a couple of attachments for it.  It was also the year I’d met my husband-to-be.  We had more fun going from store to store trying to locate the attachments.  Back then, Dremels were new and not so popular and not many places carried a variety of parts for them.  So now, not only do I think of my dad every year when I see someone’s Christmas list but also each time my husband drags me off to Lowe’s or Home Depot.