Merry Christmas Tree Pen

Here is another cool pen I own. My parents gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago, and it even has a holder so I set it by Arphaxad and Amminadab so they can have their own little Christmas tree. It's kind of crooked, and I have never actually tried to write with it, but that's not really the point.


My parents usually get me tacky little things for Christmas, but the year of the Christmas Tree Pen was a good one because they also gave me the Lava Lamp Nightlight.



My parents have always given me small things, but they're usually pinecones made to look like mosquitos or tacky blackface cornhusk dolls. I tried to express my enthusiasm for the gifts pictured above so strongly that they would get the idea, but no such luck - the next year I got a wooden thing shaped like my state that it said I could use as a weather gauge: if it was wet, it's raining; if it's white, it's snowing; etc. Ha ha. This would be a little less insulting if they didn't then give my brother extravagant, expensive gifts that he actually wants, but that's a story for another post.

One Christmas Santa did actually bring me something I had expressed an interest in: a beautiful stuffed unicorn I named Maria after the old German Christmas carol "Maria Walks Amid the Thorns." The song is sacred, mysterious, and beautiful... like unicorns! But that was just before I turned nine. More recently my parents gave me a cedar jewelry box with a unicorn on the top that I would have loved when I was nine. They gave my sister-in-law one with an old-fashioned map on it, and we looked at each other's jewelry boxes longingly until I suggested a trade. Then it was all good.

Famous Hat