I have another entry all about the adventure I've had getting this technology to work, but this evening, I successfully converted our family's 1981 Christmas tape to digital. Every year, my mother would set out a portable recorder and record us all opening our presents. In 1981, I was 4 years old, my brother Perry was nearly 11 and my oldest brother Doug was 22. We had just moved to our new house (where my parents still live) across the street from the house where we had lived and literally had more than doubled our living space.

I still remember most of the gifts that I announced that morning with glee, but all I wanted was a crawling baby. My poor mother had looked all over for a doll baby that crawled across the floor because it's all I had asked for. Her friend called her Christmas Eve that evening and said that the mall across town had them. Mom, being so very tired already and all our presents still needing to be wrapped, decided that I already had a lot of other toys and didn't go out to get the crawling baby.

With each present I opened Christmas morning, I noted that it was not what I had asked for, as if Santa were just stupid or couldn't read my list I sent him with only one thing on it - a crawlin' baby. It was pure torture for my parents. On the day after Christmas, my mother went out and bought me a crawlin' baby and wrapped it up in paper. My parents then stuck it in the fireplace and Dad asked me "do you see that? I think Santa may have dropped something." Needless to say, my brother was also looking around in the fireplace to see if Santa had dropped anything else.

You can listen to some highlights from our Christmas 25 years ago below. I can't get over how country I sound. As a note, the icon for this entry is a picture of me from Christmas that year sitting amongst all my toys.