the Spirit of '76 and San Diego Christmas traditions

Like a favorite scene in a favorite film, recall Christmas 1976 OR the year Santa brought the matching red white  & blue 10 speeds to my sister and I. 

We always got to open our stockings first but had to wake up the folks before we got to the bottom of them.  Unique to this memory-in each stocking was a note tied-up with yarn reading "follow string to the end for your gift".  ...out of the high-beamed ceiling living room; pine scented, early morning smoldering fire (left over from a Christmas Eve party/set-up to zonk out children to aid Santas midnight mischief).  Down we went, down the stairs to the bottom level and out the door into the garage-darkness.  Mom is fumbling behind with coffee in hand and Step-Dad illuminates the suprise, reaching over head to the light switch where we found the wheels of a New Year to come. 

Sprit of 1976 was on it's way and so were we. 

I was 9 years old & my sister Valerie was 12.  We'd say goodbye to her  lime green, banana seat 3 speed, complete with sissy bar and my semi-rusted hot pink coaster bike. 

That particular Christmas was warm in San Diego- as usual, the kids gathered on the top of the street to share their best gifts.  It was the year of the new bike.  We all pretended that our bikes were made of bamboo, our imaginations stranded us on Gilligan's Island.  We had to take turns who would be Ginger and who would be Maryanne.  No one wanted Gilligan on the Island.  Open for creativity was The Professor's inventions, Lovey's resort wear fashions- a straw cowgirl hat, downturned brim and Thurston Howell the 3rd's recipe for coconut flavored intoxication- played out by nopales cactus growing in the canyon-as good as companions to Christmas games as any SoCal kid could want.  We took those bikes to Girls Scouts Meetings, school and everywhere in-between.  We took those lessons of child's play into our futures and have arrived.  We now have our own children each a daughter.  Valerie lives in a cold climate with snow and has a traditional Christmas with wellies, mittens and scarves from the mudroom.  I have the trouble of making Christmas memories for my San Diego native, 3rd generation daughter that are hers and hers alone and not blundered by my own past experiences.  I have to reach into what is relevant for now.  I wish it were as easy as snowmen at Christmas.  I'd like it to be simple like constructed props from cactus fruit or palm fronds.
Will she wake up on Christmas morning to Santa's abundance of the memorable kind?  What is perfect for 2009 as the calendar turns to a new decade?  What she and we find will be a blog for a later time.   Merry Christmas sunny side up from San Diego.