Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The greatest Christmas gift you could or ever did receive (Red Ryder BB gun ?)

In 1976 I was 12. Just a couple of days before Christmas there was a package with my name that looked just the right size.
A Remington Nylon 66

I was given an old Johnson 5-HP outboard motor for my 6th birthday so that I could putt up and down Double Bayou during the summer. I had access to a small cypress skiff that must have weighed five hundred pounds. The freedom was nice, but I was by far the slowest thing on the bayou that wasn't being rowed. Two years later, my uncle borrowed it for one of his friends to use on a fishing trip. The guy either forgot or didn't know to tighten the clamps on the transom. When he cranked the engine it started and then jumped off the transom and sank. They managed to fish it out, but it was not repairable.

I moped about for the rest of the summer, but really missed the freedom of having my own boat and motor. Christmas rolled around and I hadn't asked for anything in particular. I had received a new bicycle for my birthday and the only thing I really wanted was a replacement for my old 5-horse Johnson, but there was no sign of an outboard motor under the tree.

After all the presents were opened, my Dad and my uncle went out in the garage and returned with a used, but fairly new 10-HP Mercury outboard! Mercurys were really "hot" in those days, and I never ever thought about actually being able to own one, much less one rated at twice the horsepower of my beloved old Johnson.

The next weekend after Christmas, a big blue norther came down, and the combination of the moon and the north wind blew a lot of water out of Trinity Bay. We loaded up the new motor and went oystering, and I swear that I almost got the old skiff up on a plane!

I was 24
She was 36.

I was stationed away f I’m home.

We met at the bar.

She was dressed beautifully.

She took me to her house

Got a Camellious (SP?) pocket knife for Christmas from my Dad, the year I was 8 (1960)

It was my first "good" pocket knife, after having cheap dime store junk up until then.

It would hold and edge!

I still remember Dad saying "you boys are old enough for a GOOD pocket knife now"

As my Brothers and I all got one that year.

Virgil B.

Remington Model 12, still have that .22 and shooooot da chit out of it!

Wife gave me a Browning BPS 12ga one year, back in the 80s.
Got alot of use out of it.

I daisy model 25! I got when I was 10. Shot it till it wouldn’t shoot any more!!

This about fifty years ago. I had it resealed for the third time a couple of years ago. Shoots great.

Looks like the Benjamin 22 caliber I received years ago. Hasbeen

I remember selling those from the gun counter at Hermann's Sporting Goods back in the early 1980s.

I was toward the tale end of 8 kids. We didn't have much - 8 kids on my Dad's Air Force pilot wages. But I remember feeling lots of love and feeling of belonging all year long but particularly at Christmas.

As far as best gift I ever got, the one that comes to mind is my Crosman .177 pellet gun. Dad knew I wanted one, but I thought no way he could ever afford one. That Christmas, about 1973, I got it. It was the only gift I got other than a pair of socks.

I still have the gun. It doesn't shoot anymore, but I can't seem to throw it away.

I tried fixing it for my daughter so she could use it, but I couldn't. So I bought her a Daisy pump .177

She shot that thing quite a bit growing up. She's in college now but it is still at the house.

Probably my Winchester M62A .22 at age 10. That or the bone handled Schmidt & Zigler folder Stockman knife that my late little sister gave me. The Winchester is long gone, but that knife still means more to me than all my others.

Crosman 66 pump BB/pellet gun.

Rem 870 Wingmaster 20 gauge back in 1971 from my stepfather. I passed it on to my son a few years back.

Close second is the Sako L691 300 Wby my wife gave me in 1994.

Easily my Crosman 760. My most cherished posession when I was a kid and responsible for starting me down the road of an avid hunter. We were pretty poor growing up and that 760 was a financial stretch for my parents. All I got for Christmas that year was the 760, 350 BB's, 250 Super Pells and a pack of paper bullseye targets. I couldn't have been happier.