DIANE MAKAR MURPHY A look at the ghosts of Christmas presents

This is my last column before Christmas. And it has me thinking about the number of gifts I still have to get (and how glad I am I have two weeks off to do it).
Christmas-gift selection is no cakewalk for me. When the kids were little, I wanted to buy them everything -- a penniless materialist standing in the Toys "R" Us aisle staring longingly at things my Puritan debt ethic wouldn't allow me to buy.
Recently, as part of a class I'm taking, I was asked to recall the best gifts of my childhood. What an eye-opener. In all the first 18 years of my life, I can remember only three Christmas gifts. (I wonder how much my poor parents labored over those annual gift hunts, only to have so few things remembered.)
Coke is it: First, I once discovered under our artificial, light-bedecked Christmas tree a sizzling-red, toaster-sized toy. It was unwrapped -- presumably dropped off by Santa. It turned out to be a Coca-Cola Dispensing Machine! Wow!
You inserted a Coke bottle into the back of it. Pushing a button on the front released soda into a classically shaped (but juice-sized) Coke glass. I never asked for it, but man, was I cool after getting it. People vied for the chance to operate it. I think I was a preschooler at the time. A really cool preschooler.
Another gift I found in a hardware store, and immediately thereafter began begging my parents for it. I was relentless. It was a 5-foot-long, 6-inch-wide, polished wood "bowling alley."
The balls were the size of grapes, and the red-and-white pins, which neatly stacked into a manual pin setter, were about the size of AA batteries. It had, opposite the pins, a bowler whose hand was designed to grasp and release the bowling balls on command -- after one, presumably, aimed him carefully.
The quest: Ralphie (of "A Christmas Story" fame) could not have wanted the Red Ryder air rifle as much as I wanted that bowling alley. Without the threat that MY gift would make me lose an eye, the bowling alley's only drawback was its expense -- a hefty 80 bucks, as I recall.
About a week before Christmas, I began a secret, yet frenzied, search around the house for my bowling alley. I hunted high and low, in closets, under beds, and in the garage. Finally, I sneaked into the fruit cellar, where my parents kept odds and ends and an amazing array of whiskeys and liquors (but that's another story) -- and hidden beneath a blanket, a bowling alley! I was thrilled. I replaced the blanket and waited eagerly for Christmas morning.
It still makes me feel delighted to know I got that thing. And yet, I have absolutely no memory of ever playing with it.
In awe: Lastly, I had a very rich uncle, a millionaire, who was a constant focus of admiration for everyone in our blue-collar, cop-patriarch family. Uncle Joe had made his money by being smart, owning his own trucking company -- Detroit-Pittsburgh Trucking -- and renting buildings on 100-year leases to Uncle Sam.
The little ones stood in more than a little awe of Uncle Joe, mainly because our cousin, his daughter, had her own bathroom and a private telephone line. Both were unheard of in our circles. (Although we could enter any other room in the house, Uncle Joe's bedroom was off-limits. I remember often standing at its threshold as though it were a Louis XIV exhibit at Marseilles.)
At any rate, one Christmas, I arrived at Uncle Joe's house and found a huge flat box under his tree for me. It was an Easy Bake Baking Set (alas, no oven, but everything else). Its unexpectedness and sheer size wowed me!
And so, as the 12 days of Christmas begin, I wish you happy gift-hunting and -receiving (I urge you to keep it in perspective), blessings to you and your family, and a joyous holiday, whatever your religion.
I also invite you to drop me an e-mail or note with story ideas for the New Year. I will take them to heart.
Happy holidays.
murphy@vindy.com