Vol. I, No. 3: 1. Living Together: One of Your Favorite Christmas Presents Ever? DownStreet Interviews

DownStreet hit the bricks again, this time in Middlebury, to find out from folks what they remember as one of their all-time favorite Christmas presents. ... If you read the results of our first interviews, you'll recall that what prompted it was our roving reporter and resident stranger -- Horselvaryd Harselskyd, aka, 'Horse' -- who had an insatiable curiosity about the phenomena TV shows Survivor and Big Brother.

This time, Horse was curious about Christmas. {They don't celebrate it where he comes from.} And he was particularly curious about the ritual of gift-giving that goes with the holiday. "Your people seem to buy a lot of things," Horse said. "And they seem to experience a lot of stress in the process. But," he wanted to know. "Do the persons who get the gifts actually remember what they got?"

It seemed like a reasonable question to us, so that's the question we took to the streets. We didn't want to add to people's anxiety with something like 'the best present ever'. And besides, that wasn't really Horse's question. So ... we asked the following, plain and simple:

The day we went out, the sun was shining brilliantly, but the air was still chilly. Yet it became obvious to us fairly quickly that lots more people had absolutely no interest in stopping to be interviewed compared to the other times we'd gone out. For example, when we'd first hit the bricks for a DownStreet interview, it was a brisk, bright autumn day. And of the dozen-plus people we stopped on the streets of Bristol that day, only one was unwilling to take a moment ... and that was because she didn't want her photo on-line.

This time, both the tone and the results were different: We stopped nearly thirty people in Middlebury Village and out at the Ames Shopping Plaza. But of the thirty, only six were willing to stop, and only five to be interviewed. We wondered for a moment if we looked somehow more menacing than we had last time, or if folks were wondering if we were going to seel them something. We tried to explain, quickly an clearly, who we were, and that it would take only and literally a couple of minutes. But no go. ... People seemed determined, and, in some cases, even grimly so, to get on to their next task. {Ok. Lots of folks were doing last-minute shopping, but that wasn't all there was to it.} ...

Well ... All that said, here are the results for four of the six who were willing to stop. {One gentleman thought about the question for over a minute and decided it was too difficult to answer. Another stopped promptly, but when he heard the question, he decided vary quickly that he couldn't answer it.} We'd like to thank the folks who did stop, and wish a happy holiday to all the rest ... and all of you.

Bernice Gonzalez of Middlebury {right} with her mom, Phlinda Hunt {90 years old ... God bless!} ...

Bernice: "God, I'd have to say the sled when I was a little kid. ... Yes, it was a Flexible Flyer. I got it when I was five or six. ..."

Sandra Mansi, who "just moved to Bristol." ...

"The best Xmas present I ever got, I think it's no so much a present. ... I came from a very large family, and after all the family dispersed and everybody got married and everything, coming home ... coming home was the best present. We would come from everywhere. There were nine of us. ... The first time was about 1972, and since then we've been able to do it about every five years. ... My mom still lives here in Middlebury. ..."

Robert Lawton {of were not sure where. He was in a hurry, but was nice enough to talk with us anyway, so we didn't ask.}

"A unicycle. ... Yeah, the unicycle. ... It was about '65. ... Definitely the unicycle. ..."

Ayala Wineman of Troy, NY ... a student at Middlebury College. ...

"I'm Jewish. I don't celebrate Christmas." ... {"Chanukah then?"} ... "All I can say is that my parents got me an aquarium once when I was in the 6th grade and I really loved that."

Beyond having a chance to meet these people, the most interesting thing we found was not that most of the gifts people remember enjoying the most came during childhood. That's almost to be expected. No. ...

What was interesting was how the memory of it changed them. You could see it in their eyes and on their faces ... a kind of glow and contentment came over them. ...

When we asked Horse if our interviews made any difference for his understanding of our holiday gift-giving ritual, he, too, smiled. ...

"Yar' innëte w'is katt vidifa w'ast," he said. "Unt zsent'ifa, älo. ... {"There's something that was visible," he said. "And palpable, too."}

"Aínz idt innëzo fas' idte toûl v'ilvalidt." {"And it somehow makes it all seem worthwhile."}

We couldn't agree more. ... So, from Horse and all the rest of us here at DownStreet ...

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