Tell me a Story!

Tell me one of your most memorable events, funny, heartwarming, ect that happened this time if year!

Please post your full response along with the animal ID.

Prize: 5,000 animal points

I remember a memorable Christmas event for me being when my parents split when I was maybe 11-12, and since I stayed with my dad most days, I was spending Christmas with him. My dad had financial issues, so he didn't have the money for a tree or many gifts. But on Christmas eve, he took me and my siblings around to look at holiday displays and had saved up money to each let us pick of one big gift, so we drove to the nicest department store in the area and we picked out toys and he got us our favorite foods and a dessert. 

He doesn't think I remember or that it was really that special, but it was and my most memorable Christmas.

points on: horse #341197

One of my favorite Christmas memories happened close to 13 years ago! My mom and I offered to feed the horses at our boarding barn on Christmas morning to give the owner a day off. I thought we were just going to lend a hand, but it turns out my mom bought me my first horse, Gracie! We started at the the opposite end from Gracie's stall, so I didn't find out immediately. But I got to Gracie's stall to feed her and her stall was decorated with wrapping paper, garland, and a giant bow. On the wrapping paper my mom wrote "Merry Christmas, Paige!" I feel like I can't describe it as well as it was, but it was a super cool experience and probably my favorite gift as a kid. Now as an adult I'm hoping I can afford to buy myself a horse as a Christmas gift some day haha. 

points on https://horsephenomena.com/dogs.php?id=130822

The first time I bought a real Christmas tree! I'm not any good at typing out and telling stories, but I had always grown up with either no tree or one of those table top fake ones. The first year I lived in my own house the very first thing I did was go get a five foot live tree. And the SMELL was so amazing! It looked so pretty the whole of December. I've had a real tree to enjoy every year since 😊

Horse #339719 please 😁

One of my favorite memories isn't really Christmas themed, but happened around this time about 20 years ago! *feels so old haha* We were having a snowstorm, but I was still able to make it to my riding lesson. All the other kids had canceled, so it turned out to being a private lesson. That was when my instructor decided that I would learn how to canter that day. Sweet, patient, saint of a pony named Cup Cake helped me figure it out. It was a challenge but soo much fun! At the end we got to ride up the driveway in the falling snow. I don't remember being cold, but just remember seeing the snow falling between those chestnut colored fuzzy ears!

Points to Dog: (#131435)

My absolute most memorable event wasn't something I can post about here on H.P., so I'll tell of my second. That I can remember.

Early in the morning on 24th of August, I was lying on my bestie's bed using my laptop, as I always do, and am doing now (he sleeps in the livingroom on his couch). This apartment overlooks the city. The tallest building is the Obel Tower, and I can see it from here.
That morning, I happened to turn my head to look out the window, and this is what I saw:

https://i.imgur.com/yDCSoak.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Sryzacw.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/p9UFPym.jpg

At first, I coudn't figure what was going on, then realised that the effect was created by the sun shining on the windows of the Tower, then reflected onto the fog in between. 

Points here please! https://horsephenomena.com/dogs.php?id=97429

I had gotten my first horses only a few months earlier and my mom thought it would be a great idea to get winter photos of me and her. She had quite a few behavioral problems and have been a challenge thus far in various ways. We had been working diligently together on becoming a team and better understanding one another. 
There's some big open spaces near my friends house where we kept her and we decided I'd ride her there to take photos running through the snow. I had yet to ride her out bareback (something we did often at home) and she had a tendency to be very head strong and she loved to run! She was a QH/Arab/pinto cross. 
I was so worried at first and then as we started running across that field over and over in various directions and speeds it suddenly felt like things were clicking into place. That moment felt finally like I hadn't made the wrong decision in accepting her from her old owner. I still treasure those photos to this day and it was a tradition we continued until she passed onto her new home years back in retirement. I miss her and those special wintertime memories. 

https://horsephenomena.com/horses.php?id=340870

The year I was 9, my brother was 6. He got the chicken pox over Christmas, and kept falling asleep between turns to open his presents and my parents kept having to wake him up, poor guy. 

My sister (who was 3) and I then got the pox over New Years, and I fell asleep at like 5pm and obviously missed midnight fesivities.

Points to Samwise!

For my 15th Christmas, my dad officially gave me Stubb.

I had fallen in love with him as a child - he was born on my aunties farm.  When we moved back to this town (we were further north for dads job for about a decade - before I was born until I was 8), we bought our own acreage.  Dad bought Stubb for himself - he was a good all around horse, and auntie had about 15 horses like that.  Despite the fact that he was dads, I doted on him - used my allowance to buy him new halters and brushes, caught him and burshed him daily.  I had a horse of my own, too, but me and her barely got along.

It got to a point where Stubb didn't like dad catching him (as dad = work and Stub knew this), so dad would have me go get him every ride.  We bonded hard and I loved him, but my parents maintained he was too hot for me to ride regularly (he was - all it took for him to go from 0-100 is somebody to say "hey Stubb, wanna go?" and then it was all one could do to not let him bolt.  He reared.  He acted a fool.  I loved it).  But I kept refusing to ride May (the 14 HH horse they wanted me to ride), and instead sneaking out to ride Stubb bareback and stuff.

After years of this going on - even through my upgrading to a larger, less easy horse (Skip, this one was called), my dad finally let me ride Stubb more - to gymkhanas, and barrel races, and everything.  And he was amazing - a brat who reared and jigged and got stupid excited, but he never was mean, and he was always waiting at the fence for me when I got off the bus.  After a year or so of this, and him grumbling as he trained Smokey (since he needed an available horse to ride, and Skip was having foals), for Christmas he gave me Stubbs papers and a bill of sale saying he was mine.

My great nephew's fist Christmas. He will be seven on December 30. Also my fist Christmas in the house I am now living in. This is my second Christmas in this house.

Sally 342116