Potatoes make best Christmas memories

I was 14 when we decided to buy the movie camera Dad and Mom had always wanted. With five children between 10 and 15 on a small, family dairy farm, they could not afford it – until we met the potato farmer who could not afford a labor-saving harvester or migrant worker housing.
For an eternity of Saturdays, we hauled baskets of potatoes to huge potato barrels and hoarded our savings in a blue jar. When the sun shone and the dirt was dry, the mechanical digger shook the potatoes out of the dirt like chunks of gold. When the mist fell and the ground was wet, we knelt in sticky mud and grubbed for spuds.
As the harvest ended, we studied the catalogs and grinned. We had enough money for the best outfit: a camera with a zoom lens, as well as the fancy projector, screen and film, plus the wrapping paper.
“Let’s go Christmas shopping tonight, Mom.” she drove us into town.
While my youngest sister and brother followed her in the department store, my sister, older brother and I slipped next door to the catalog store.
“According to this catalog, with a $75 order, there is a free deluxe collection of wrapping paper. What if we order $150?” The clerk thought a minute, “I guess you’d get two.” We ordered.
When the order came in we had Mom take us shopping again. Amused customers watches as my sister unscrewed the jar’s lid and pulled out $150 in bills and coins.
We hid our packages under a blanket in the back of the station wagon. At home, my brother said, “I better check on the cows.” so he could sneak everything inside through the unused basement door. When it was safe, we spirited it all upstairs in our second floor bedrooms and opened all the boxes. We gloated over our treasure of rich, colorful ribbons, bows and wrapping paper, tried the camera and projector and put up the screen.
The secret was too good to keep. When our cousins visited, we showed off everything. They told their parents, one of the aunts told Grandma.
Grandma called my mother, “Now don’t you scold them.”
My mother had no idea what grandma was talking about. Grandma never told her. Neither did my little brother. Not even the day he needed more money.
Mom looked at him puzzled. “What happened to al that money you earned picking up potatoes?”
He looked at her innocently, “It’s all gone.”
Christmas morning, the cows never knew what hit them, they were milked so early. Dad was still asleep when my brothers came in from that morning’s milking. My sisters and I had the required “breakfast before presents” meal ready long before sunrise. Someone shoved the Bible into Dad’s hands for our traditional reading of the Christmas story. And we were ready for opening presents.
My brother gave my Mom the package holding the movie camera. Mom opened it and began crying Dad grinned speechlessly. We were delighted. With the help of a few potatoes, we had pulled off our best Christmas surprise ever.