Reflections in A Dime Store Windowby Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger 23 Dec 2006 11:28 AM
From Cheap Charlie's to George's Discount Store, I grew up trailing behind my mother as she went from place to place, gathering something here, something there and chatting with the owners. "Did you know that so-and-so-down the street has Christmas hooks for 10 cents a box?" she would say, prompting the store we were in to give her a better deal. My favorite store, though, the one that is tangled in all of my Christmas memories, is the five and dime. This large store was filled with everything imaginable, and the prices were so low, that I could usually get anything if I asked my mother nicely. Blinking Christmas displays and aisles and aisles of decorations made me inhale deeply, the scent of carved wood and plastic tinsel. Even now, I could probably tell you where in the aisle each ornament came from. There was a glistening cardboard ladder with three angles climbing up, plastic reindeer covered with red felting, little wooden soldiers holding muskets. The ornaments were not the carefully molded and marketed things of today, made of crystal or available in a limited edition series, but they were magical to a wide-eyed child waiting for Santa. A few years ago, my mother passed away, not much more than a month before Christmas. I inherited some of those very same ornaments that first hung in the five and dime and then later graced our family Christmas tree. I have a new family now, a wonderful husband and three wide-eyed children of my own. This afternoon, as I handed a little stuffed Santa to my two-year-old daughter, I realized how ingrained the exposure of my youth is to my adulthood. And I resolved, right then and there, to take the kids out, bypassing the trendy little Christmas boutique in favor of our local discount store, where they can get anything they want, if they ask their mother nicely. Related Articles: Learn more about Mary Ann Romans  Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat. Relevantdealsblog tags User Comments No comments on this article yet. Be the first to comment! Community Tags christmas, memories, ornaments Discuss this article
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My first exposure with getting good deals happened early on in my childhood. Caught up in the holiday wonderland of Brooklyn, New York, the sort of magic that is captured by the song "Silver Bells, Silver Bells," I would stare wide-eyed at the shops lining the street. 
