A Christmas Secret

     Many,many years ago, about Christmas time in the Quinn household, my father discovered a strange object in the back of the closet where he hung his coat and hat. It  was sort of question-mark shaped, had a big bow on it, and was about five feet tall. He was puzzled..

    When he asked what it was, my sister Amy and I told him it was a secret and it was his Christmas present. It wasn't really, but he was always asking us what we were getting him as a gift so we thought we would have a great laugh. The object in question was actually a "shepherd's hook" that we had made for Amy's Little Bo Peep Halloween costume. It was made from an old broom stick, a coat hanger, newspaper, wrapping paper, and ribbon.

  So, as the holiday progressed he was constantly asking for hints as to what it was. On the day he opened the "present" and when he got down to the stick and hanger, he could not figure out what it was...so we told him it was a "chicken catcher'...the curved hook of the hanger slid up and down the stick for distance.

  We got such a laugh out of it that it became a tradition to give my Dad some weird funny gift for Christmas each year. The next year one of us found an object that to this day I don't know what it was, but made a great gift. It was made of cast iron, shaped like a half of a hollowed out pear, and had a screw assembly through it. His demand for hints made us really puzzle for answers. We thought perhaps it was some kind of nut cracker. But no one ever was able to figure it out....neither did my father who we thought knew everything.

  One gift was really imaginative. We got him three bottles of Old Spice...each had two tiny handles on them as part of the design, so of course, the hint was...'It has six handles".  We all laughed while he tried to find the answer to that one.

   Christmas at the Quinnery was always fun!

Woodsdale Kids have Kids who have Kids...show us your best shot.

                                Woodsdale Kids have Kids and Grandkids

Yes, this is a  real pic of  Heritage Port in Wheeling with both bridges shown and the gazebo,and always the river. Not sure who took this pic, but it is sooooooooooooo romantic all in the pastels of sunset

Wouldn't it be wonderful to see the families of old neighbors on here? Christmas photos with the old gang and the new additions?. A brief summary of where you live  now and whether you enjoy it.

You can send those pic to Howdy or me be sure to say who is who for each pic. I'll be happy to post them. Howdy's address is the one at the top of the blog, mine is katequinn5@frontier.com.

It is getting harder and harder for me to continue to write articles for the block, especially when I get no feedback or comments. I did learn that yes indeed Woodsdale had a 9th grade at one time.....there are so many interesting stories I could tell you about Gulliver my goat, wild parties in New Zealand, how I got to be an honorary Maori, but none of those have any thing to do with Woodsdale. We have wracked our brains trying to get people to share memories of Woodsdale and yet I have still ended up being the main writer...that was not my intent when I started. Perhaps Ill have better lucy getting all of you to tell me where you were when you heard JFK was dead?

In any case,you only get out of something what you are willing to put into it.So have a go, at least post a few pics.

Thanks and hope the season leaves you with warm memories,

Kate