Christmas Surprises

The Campbell family loved to do things together. There were four girls and two boys: Heather (17), Amy (14), Laura (13), Katie (10), Greg, (8) and Fred (5). They lived in Billings, Montana where it snows a lot in the winter. One Christmas Mr. Campbell was out of work. When the children were growing up, they received things many children in the world receive: toy soldiers, trains, books, dolls, puzzles, and bicycles. This particular Christmas the children gave each other things they no longer wanted or needed. When Christmas Day came, each of the children were excited when they they saw all of the packages around the tree. There must have been a family around where they lived that decided to play Secret Santa on their famiily. What could be in the packages? Of course, the people who gave them the packages didn't say who they were from. When all of the packages were opened, the children discovered that each of them had received a pair of ice skates and a fishing pole. Their shouts of glee could be heard a half a mile away. They wished that they could thank these people from the bottom of their hearts. Words couldn't express the joy they felt. In January the Campbell family decided to go to one of the two frozen ponds in the vicinity of where they lived. This particular Saturday the snow fell lightly, and the temperature was a frigid ten degrees. The family wore their warmest coats hats, gloves, boots, and scarves. Greg and Fred were the most excited and also nervous about learning how to ice skate. There were other people ice skating that day but there was plenty of room for each of the ice skaters to have fun skating. Greg and Fred watched the rest of their family skate around the pond a few times. Then they skated around the outer edge of the pond and followed closely behind their dad. Both of them fell a couple of times, but they got right back up again and continued to skate. They both excitedly said, "Daddy, I am skating!" The family went ice skating often after that.

The next Saturday the family went to the other frozen pond in the vicinity of their house as soon as the sun came up. It was a lovely day with no snow this time. There were men wearing hip waders and fishing for trout. They wanted to fish for bass so Mr. Campbell attached a lure to each of their poles that looked like a frog to attract the bass. The older children knew how to fish, but Greg and Fred didn't know how to fish yet. Their dad showed them how to cast their poles and reel them in. They watched their family members catch bass of different sizes. Then they tried their luck fishing one by one. In a few minutes' time, each of them saw a big splash and felt a big tug. Each of their mouths opened wide when they saw the big bass they had caught. They each shouted, "Daddy, I caught a great big one!" Their dad helped them reel their fishing pole in and got the bass they had caught off of their fishing poles. He put them into the bucket with the rest of the bass the family caught. The Campbell family caught several bass that day which lasted them for several months.

The family never did find out who gave them the pairs of ice skates and the fishing poles that particular Christmas Day. The children decided that the next Christmas they would help make a needy family's Christmas jut as special as a mysterious family made theirs. They would also make sure the family wouldn't know who the gifts they gave them were from.