The Book of Me, Written by You, #18: First Gift

I'm catching up on this series of blogging prompts.  This one is:  what was the first gift that you received?

Heavens, I can't remember!  I'm sure it was long, long ago, at an early Christmas or birthday.  But I surely do not remember.

So I will do what some other bloggers following this series of prompts have done, and write about a memorable gift from my childhood.  I was about eight years old the Christmas I received it.

Unfortunately, I cannot show a photograph of it.  I doubt one can be found these days.  It was whimsical, a product of the late 1950s, when I received it.  It was a stuffed . . . er . . . animal.  Or something.  It looked sort of like a monkey, with gangly arms and legs, but had a face more like some sort of alien from outer space.  It was garishly colored.  When my brother and sister and I were permitted to come out of our rooms to the living room, I saw it under the tree -- my mother had apparently not even entertained the thought of wrapping such a strangely-shaped thing -- I exclaimed, "That's great!  What is it?"

It became known as "Whatsit."  I had "Whatsit" until, threadbare and bedraggled, it finally had to be given up.  Even today, some 58 years later, I laugh when I think of "Whatsit."
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