Pickles by Brian Crane for December 14, 2020

Don’t ask Nelson…Earl will just give you all the ugly, sordid details!

And you are damn happy to get them

Come on, Earl. You can continue the tradition and give your old unmentionables to Nelson. One might say you’re keeping the streak going.

good ol’ granduncle Leon, eh, Nelson? (I asked this year for an iPhone holster, a book, and a movie)

Hopefully they were washed first.

I was daughter #3 and got all their worn out stained dresses.

It’s a good thing his older sibling was a brother…

Santa had to fly up hill both ways to deliver them. And, he wasn’t allowed to ask for more gruel.

Well Earl at least they were broken in ;-)

Walked to school in the snow, 2 miles uphill both ways, too!

kids today have no idea what it was like in the 40s

This is just plain gross! ARRRRRGH!

My child, who is now 35, had a hand-me-down Christmas one year and she never knew until years later. I wrapped what I could in in plastic wrap to appear new(ish). It was a very humbling experience but still a nice Christmas.

I’m 60 y.o. My older brother has been in his grave for over seven years now. I’m still wearing his hand-me-downs. I am considering buying some of my own clothes soon; maybe next month.

Another grandparent myth, like how far they walked to school in the snow uphill without proper shoes or a muffler

Socks and underwear were new, but I don;t think i owned a new shirt before I was about 25 years old. Unfortunately my brothers were 10 and 12 years older than I was so a lot of the clothes I wore in the late 80’s early 90’s were in style in the early 70’s. Not good for social status.

Could be worse—could have been from his older sister.

The only thing that I’ll ever get from a thrift store is a set of false teeth.

Great panel 4, did not expect that…LOL.

At least Earl’s not my Irish grandfather, who took the shotgun out into the back yard, fired off a shot, and then announced to all us little grandkids: “There’ll be no Christmas gifts this year! Sandy Claws is dead!”

Yay legos! I have 90 sets no joke.

Don’t listen, kid! I’m not that much younger than your Grandpa, and what I got for Christmas as a child was Hot Wheels, Legos and a bike.

Will he now tell the story of walking 12 miles to school and back? Uphill both ways, of course.

Ahh… Hand me down socks and underwear. We used to DREAM of hand me down socks and underwear.

We had to make do with napkins we snitched from fast food restaurants (until they kicked us out). Sometimes we lucked out and got NEW napkins…

But we were happy…

Same here, my mom did not buy us kids much on toys. When I then married with our first son, Grandpa usually bought his grandson hat too small, or me pants to small.

Christmas 1948 is my most remembered when my older brother and I fought over my new stamped-metal wrecker truck and I caught Mrs. Ring’s nail bed in the boom. Cut down into the bone. Half the nail has since then been gone.

Ahh! Those were the days.

There’s a fascinating book about the secondhand clothing (and other re-used items) industry called Secondhand by Adam Minter.

I may be Grandpa’s age and my brother got hot wheels, legos and a bike. I got things like a Singer Sew Handy which was a rather well built little sewing machine for girls, and a bike. I played with my brother’s Lego.

No Lincoln Logs, any body? Back when they were actually made of wood.

And Earl had to wash them himself, down by the frozen river, pounding them on rocks, in the rain, the sleet, and the snow, etc.

Yup… that was the good part about being the oldest, I got all the new stuff. The bad part was getting all the discipline and higher expectations. My younger siblings did get the hand me downs, but the parents were also less strict with each successive sibling. And the baby sister got away with murder (as the saying goes).

Though… in the long run, that greater discipline and higher expectations paid off for me. It wasn’t much fun at the time, but it paid dividends later in life.

Your older brother’s hand me downs. And me here with a younger sister.

what?! no video games?

My best Christmas present ever was my brother-in-law’s old Pentax camera with many lenses and attachments…

I agree.

I was lucky that I had an older sister. No hand me downs for me. BUT…I did have an older boy cousin.