My Dad used to take all five of us children shopping for Christmas gifts for my Mother. And, yes, he did it at the same time. We each had $1 to spend. Now, there is a 9 year age span, so we older children could help a little with the younger ones. But we were all in the store together. We went to J.C. Penney and Hinshaw’s in Arcadia, California. Both of these stores were on Baldwin Avenue.
Each of us children also bought gifts for each of our siblings. That meant that Mother or Dad had to take us shopping so that we could each find four gifts. Again, I believe we had a $1 limit for the gift. Of course that meant that each of us children had 6 gifts to wrap: one for each parent and one for each of our four siblings. There were a lot of presents under the tree. In many ways I think I was more excited about watching family members open the gifts that I bought than as in opening the gifts they bought me. Christmas morning was exciting.
