My Best Kept Christmas Secret

I was telling my husband and my mother (hint, hint) that I would like a new potato masher for Christmas.

It made me recall a favorite Christmas secret I once kept. The Sunday afternoon process of mashing potatoes had caused both my mother and father to discuss the need for a hand potato masher. (We used a "mixer/blender" to do the potatoes, which once caused my father and me to make Wallpaper Paste!)

One year, as Christmas approached, my dad came to me with a shopping bag and said, "Hide this somewhere, it is a potato masher for your mother for Christmas." I was so excited, just what she had been mentioning. Well a few days later, my mother whispered, whilst holding a similar shaped shopping purchase, "We need to hide this somewhere for Dad. It is a potato masher for Christmas."

Ohhhh-Ahhhh-the agony of having to keep a straight face. But me, yes me, didn't open my little childhood, talkative mouth. I kept my mouth closed. But oh how I remember giggling on Christmas morning, when my mother and father produced out of their Christmas wrapping paper piles, their very own potato masher!