The gift of a lifetime

’Tis better to give than to receive. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to get presents.

We asked people throughout the Key about the best Christmas or Hanukkah gift they’ve ever received. Here’s what they had to say about the holiday gifts that kept on giving.

“I was 5 years old and I had fallen off a swing and had a hernia on my right side. Two years later, when I needed an operation, I saw this great big baby doll in the window, right around Christmastime. My parents told me I could have the doll if I agreed to have the operation. When I came out of the operating room, there was the doll sitting there.”
— Shirley Beachum

“A cruise with our whole family. This year, we’re going from Dec. 28 to Jan. 8. There will be 30 people — all of our kids and grandkids, ages 9 to 29. We try to do it every other year.”
— Bob Gussin

“The best Christmas gift ever was when I saw the sun go down over the Taj Mahal on Christmas Day in 1973. It’s now 2013, and I still talk about that day.”
— Graham Cox

“What about an after-Christmas present? We had our first grandson, Kyle, on Dec. 29, 2003.”
— Jean Griffin

“The best one I ever had was when I met my husband around the season and got engaged on my birthday one month later. I can truly say he was the best gift ever.”
— Joan Webster

“I got a really gorgeous horse named Polly that was half Arabian, half pinto when I was 16. She had a really bad attitude, sort of like me. My mom and dad bought her for me because we had just moved from inner-city Chicago to the middle of Indiana.”
— Marilyn Hoyt

“I dropped my birthstone, an emerald, in the waste bin of the L.A. airport probably five or six years ago. My husband had it reset and surprised me.”
— Pat Geraci

“I got a star one year named Barbara-Ann. It still twinkles at me every night.”
— Barbara Lawson

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected]