The Punch Bowl Fiasco

Despite the fact that her birthday is on April Fool’s Day, Rachel’s birthdays have been typical birthday celebrations around here.  We can usually count on my Dad for a practical joke or two, but other than that, it’s the usual birthday merriment.  OK, there was that one year that I had to make her birthday cake three times before I got it right, but it did turn out perfectly … eventually.  This year was different.  Well, for the most part, it was a typical, lovely birthday celebration.  The food was good, the cake was tasty (Texas Sheet Cake – hard to mess that one up), the weather was gorgeous.

Then there were the gifts. 

My parents take gift-giving very seriously. It is very important to them that they pick out gifts that will be the most meaningful to their grandchildren.  I mean, they really labor over this – going the extra mile (often literally) to find just that perfect gift.  For birthdays, they usually bring several gifts for the birthday child, and there is always one extra special gift, and it’s usually the biggest one.  This year was no different (although they did get a very nice gift in a tiny box – a beautiful necklace).  The biggest gift this year was also a very heavy gift.  Courtney happened to be passing out the gifts, and she could barely lift this one off the entertainment center and hand it to Rachel. 

It ended up being a beautiful antique punch bowl and punch cups. A strange gift for a 16-year-old? Not in this family.  :-)  Most of the gifts are age-appropriate, intended to be used, played with, enjoyed while their grandchildren are still children, which grandparents especially know is a fleeting time.  But there is often a keepsake gift; one that is intended to be a treasure, an heirloom, that will be enjoyed in future years, being passed down for future generations.  That’s what my parents had in mind when they spotted this punch bowl at an antique store. Not only is it a beautiful punch bowl, but is nearly identical (if not identical) to a punch bowl that my parents have and use on special occasions, complete with a removable pedestal, and 12 matching punch glasses. 

So, they bought this punch bowl two years ago, with the intention of giving it to Rachel on her 16th birthday. And they’re explaining all this to Rachel as she opens the gift and carefully takes out a couple of individually-wrapped punch glass to admire.  Again, the box is heavy, it’s contents are fragile, so Rachel decides to leave the rest of the items in the box. Not wanting Courtney to have to hoist the box back up onto the entertainment center, but knowing that’s the safest place for the box, I jumped up to help.

That’s when this happened:

Shock.  Horror.  It seemed to happen in slow motion, yet too fast for me to do anything about. I was absolutely certain -- I just knew -- the whole box would be nothing but bits of shattered glass.  I’ll never forget that sound.  The sound of all that antique glass. And my saintly mother saying, almost immediately, “Honey, it can be replaced. I’ve got extras of that same glass” (even when her kids are all grown up, she’s there trying to soften the blows :-) And then, when the impossible happened … out of all that, we lost only one punch glass?!!  It was a combination of absolute disbelief, relief, elation, and … hilarity at the whole thing.  To go from happy birthday celebrating, to the oohs and ahhhs over a very special gift, complete with a story of how they found it, to watching the whole thing come crashing down in a matter of about one minute.  I just lost it.  I think I laughed for about 3 minutes straight, with my rock solid husband taping and laughing the whole time (the video was edited to shorten that.  :-)  So, to recap, we went from this:

to this:

And believe it or not, Rachel said it was the absolute highlight of her birthday and she wanted as many people as possible to see her graceful mother in action.  So, here it is!  Happy Birthday, Rachel!  May future generations enjoy many delicious glasses of punch from this punch bowl, while they laugh at the crazy story of how it became yours!

 

P.S.  See the punch bowl on the entertainment center in the background?  It’s still there, 5 days later.  I think everyone is scared to move it.  I’m not touching it.