The Gift That Keeps on Giving 2025

The Gift That Keeps on Giving 2025

How many of you have seen National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? I’m pretty sure most of you have seen it. Do you remember when Clark Griswold’s Christmas Bonus turned out to be a one-year membership to the Jelly of the Month Club, and Eddie quipped, “That’s the gift that keeps on giving the whole year”?

I didn’t get a membership to the Jelly of the Month Club, but I did get a special gift last Christmas, and it turned out to be the gift that keeps on giving.

No one gave me this gift,  it just crawled into my garage a week before Christmas… as I wrote then…

It was a week before Christmas and there were no sounds in the house, when suddenly from the garage door came a squeaking – like a mouse. I searched the garage for wild creatures that sometimes come looking for food in winter. But I saw nothing – yet I could still hear the little squeaking sounds coming from somewhere in the garage. Try as I might, I could find not a single critter in the garage – I could only hear its faint squeaking.

Frustrated at not being able to find the source of the tiny squeaks, I went to bed and thought no more of it as I drifted off into sleep.

Truffle on January 16, 2023.

The next morning arrived quickly as next mornings too often do. I had almost forgotten the little squeaks in the garage. I opened the door that led from the house to the garage. Three steps lead from the house to the garage floor, and as I looked down at the foot of those stairs I saw a tiny little kitten – shivering in the cold. It was a pitiful, heart-wrenching sight. A tiny kitten barely old enough to be separated from its mother – was now cowering and shivering in the cold in my garage.

Well, now four months have passed, and that tiny, dirty, stinky, shivering kitten has grown up into a loving and beautiful cat who has somehow stolen my heart.

Now my house is full of cat toys, and my pantry is full of cat food and cat treats. The other night, I couldn’t find her. It was late, and she was nowhere to be found. She almost always comes when I call her, and if she doesn’t, she always comes when she hears the word “treat.

Calling out, “Where are you, Truffle?” “Truffle!” “Truffle”? Searching the house in every room under every bed and every piece of furniture turned up nothing. I didn’t know what to do. It was then that I realized how much I care about that cat. In just 4 months, she has become a part of my home and a part of my life.

I was so worried about her that I couldn’t go to bed.  Finally, after searching every room, I looked in the garage, and there she was. She had somehow managed to push the screen door open and meander into the garage.

Cats, however, are finicky. This is one of the things I like about them – because they can be challenging. They can be aloof one minute and hungry for attention and love the next. She sauntered into the house from the garage – reluctantly- and after rubbing against my leg looked up at me as if to say… “OK… where’s my treat?”

Guess what?  I gave her a treat, she climbed up on the back of the couch, took a bath, and fell asleep. Just another day in her life.

And now when I leave the house, I think about her and wonder how she’s doing. When I go to the grocery store, I always buy her something – a treat, a toy, a new kind of food.

I think back and remember how she came into my life on a cold winter day and how I called the animal shelter to see if they would take her. She was a dirty, stinky, little stray cat that I didn’t want to keep.

I cannot tell you how glad I am now that the animal shelter had no room for her.

I still think an angel sent her to me. I needed something like Truffle in my life. 

Truffle on April 17, 2024.

She was a Christmas gift, I am sure of it.  I don’t know how I got so lucky.  I’m so grateful she wandered into my garage at Christmastime. She really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Update 2025…

Now it’s Christmas Eve 2025, and my little Christmas gift is still giving. She’s older and even cuter and still afraid of strangers and loud sounds. She loves her ears scratched and her belly petted and is a wonderful companion who still runs and hides when anyone comes to visit. When I tell people I have a cat, they look at me like I’m crazy – they’ve never seen her. But then they see the toys and her food bowl.

But she loves me, and I love her, and I’m even more thankful she chose my home as her home. I don’t know what I would do without her. 

She reminds me that love is one of the most wonderful things about Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!