Meme time!

five things I miss about childhood.

1. Summer library reading club. I did this looooong after it ceased to be cool to do it. I liked the whole thing - the stickers, the fact that you could list all the books you had read, the having-an-excuse-to-ask-my-mom-to-take-me-to-the-library. They did give out McDonald's coupons for 5, 10, and 20 books read (for things like small orders of fries or cones) but that wasn't much of an attraction to me. Later, when I was too old for the program itself, I worked for it as a volunteer and got to hand out the stickers and see all of the excited kids.

2. Back-to-School hoopla. Now, I pretty much teach year-round, and also I don't do the big-clothes-buying or new-shoes trips like used to happen in August before school started. (When I was up visiting my parents recently, my mom and I were waiting in the car while my dad ran into the AAA for something - next door was a kid's shoe store and a little girl walked out wearing what were obviously new school shoes. I felt a real pang of nostalgia - I remember going to the Hush Puppies or the Stride Rite store or Miller's Shoes in the Chapel Hill Mall [they had a perhaps 1/4 or 1/8 scale model tugboat in the center of the store for kids to play on and they gave out lollipops] and buying some kind of new, stiff, leather, dress-up shoes to wear to school. I don't remember wearing sneakers regularly when I was a kid - I don't know if it just wasn't done as much, or if because I had flat feet the doctors told my parents not to let me wear sneakers very much, or if it was part of my childhood girliness that I wanted "girl shoes" to wear to school, or what). I also miss going out for new school supplies - the fresh box of crayons, the new long pencils that haven't had their erasers bit off yet, the new unwritten-on folders...

3. Hallowe'en. I loved dressing up and going out. I loved sorting my candy and seeing what I got. (The candy actually hung around until Christmas when my mom threw most of it out - I ate the few things that I liked but I never did the sugar-fueled orgy of consumption thing that some of my friends did). I liked dressing up at school and doing the little parades we did around the parking lot (so the moms could all come and photograph us. My mom has pictures of both me and my brother from our school Hallowe'ens). It's NOT as much fun when you're a grownup. And somehow, the college-style "Hallowe'ens" (which usually included cutouts of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and some kind of strongly alcoholic "witches' brew" or orange beer or something) just seemed kind of a sad shadow of the childhood fun.

4. Playing with toys. I've forgotten how. I remember when I was a kid I had a whole box of those little plastic zoo and farm animals (and some unusual ones - I had a set of Dog Breeds of the World). And I used to play with them in the sandbox, or with blocks indoors, or even with my Fisher-Price buildings indoors. I used to move them through little stories or plays. I used to build houses for them out of Lego bricks. I can remember doing it, but I can't remember how I got so totally absorbed in that little world, I can't remember a time when I believed my dolls or stuffed animals were Really Truly Alive. That kind of thing. And I miss getting my meager allowance and then going shopping for more little toys. (I was just at the upper age limit of that kind of thing when Smurf mania hit for the first time. I had a whole bunch of Smurfs. Still do, packed away somewhere at my parents' house).

5. The way Christmas used to be when I was a kid - where it didn't involve traveling when I was exhausted from exam week, when I wasn't doing rewriting or revision of papers over the break, when the month leading up to it had been a flurry (as it was in grade school) of Winter Programs (but we still sang some Christmas songs like Rudolph and Frosty) and making things with construction paper and glitter, and writing lists of what toys I wanted after consulting the big fat Sears catalog that came every year. And if I think really really hard, I can just remember believing in Santa, and how beautiful and good that was, and how wonderful it was to think that there was someone who didn't even know you that well but who loved you so much and wanted you to be happy that he'd give you toys and leave candy in a stocking...I remember figuring out the whole truth of the matter (at, actually, a fairly advanced age, I think) and feeling a bit sad that such a lovely thing wasn't actually literally true, but not feeling betrayed or angry (as some of my friends have talked about). And I miss getting new toys for Christmas. And I miss some of the element of surprise - nowadays my parents ask my brother and me for detailed lists, and we get stuff off the list. Back then, when we lived at home and were in closer contact, my parents were much more likely to totally surprise us - oh, "Santa" would get us one or two of the things we really, reeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllly wanted, but then there'd be the presents of things you didn't even know existed, like one year a whole Noah's Ark toy with lots of animals and a big ark for them to live in, or craft supplies, or (and I admit I didn't appreciate them as much as I should have then) books my parents knew we'd like. And I miss the Christmas specials - even though I watch them every year when they come on, somehow, it's not the same as when I was a kid and was allowed to watch television on a school night because it was a SPECIAL and maybe I'd watch in my pajamas and my mom would make hot chocolate for us...And I miss going to the Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree like when my brother and I were kids. (Are there even Christmas tree farms any more?)