Growing up, this was a wonderful time of year. School had started in the beginning of fall. (Okay, I was weird, but I loved the school year.) We had Halloween to celebrate my birthday. Now we were into the full swing of the season, with family gatherings of cake and ice cream weekly. There were an awful lot of cousins, aunts and uncles, and most of them had been autumn babies. Thanksgiving was just a few weeks away, and then would come all the wonders of Christmas.Each year, my grandmother would quietly take each of us kids aside and give us a coffee can of pennies. In a family of our size, there wasn't a lot of money. Especially since Grandpop's work, roofing, was seasonal in New Jersey. But Gramma would manage to set aside her pennies all year, saving enough to fill (at least partway) a coffee can for each of her grandkids. We would count out the change, sitting on the floor of her kitchen on Paynters Road. Then she'd take us shopping for our parents.
We'd go to the Laurelton Circle, which I remember as a flea market filled with wonderful dollar-store valuables. Would mom like a red vase with a silk flower? Or maybe she'd prefer a genuine fake-jade elephant. Gramma would let us buy whatever we wanted, and we would pay by carefully counting out the pennies from the can.
Afterwards, we'd wrap and label our gifts and leave them in Gramma's safekeeping until Christmas day. Some of us would spend the rest of the season giving hints of what we had bought. Some of us just forgot we had been shopping, and were as surprised on Christmas morning as the recipient.
I hope I can remember the joy of the penny jar as I shop this season.
(Eating cake and ice cream every weekend with the family would be nice, too.)
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