It Will Never Be A Lexus

It is December 12, 2008. There is commercial running these days that shows a little girl standing with a pony in her living room on Christmas morning. She is telling us how wonderful to have gotten a pony and just as she is saying that this is the best...(dissolve to her as an adult looking at her gift wrapped Lexus)...Christmas present ever, she joyfully runs to her car.

I’m sure that it is a fine automobile but if growing up means giving up on the idea that a pony is the best Christmas present ever, then I am choosing arrested development as an official stance.

Judy’s first horse was named Robbie which is interesting because she currently rides a Robbie. The real star of her childhood though was a Welsh Mountain Pony named Flint. As long as I had known Judy and her dream of horses, I had heard the tales of Flint. I have no doubt her years riding him up until she had to give him up to go off to college instilled her continuing preference for really big ponies.

It is probably impossible to top Blue Ridge Tiger, a Connemara Pony who arrived Christmas Eve, 1982. We had just gotten started in the world of computers and did not really have the money for him. But Judy’s father put up the money and bought his youngest daughter a pony for Christmas.

The outrageously versatile Tiger could jump with any Hunter, run 50 miles with the Arabians, provide an arrow straight jousting platform and still be good natured enough to dress up in the most absurd costumes. He was the pony of a lifetime. The one that deep down inside you know you don’t really deserve.

On Christmas Eve, 2002, it started snowing. This was great for the relatives in from Canterbury, England where they don’t get much snow.
The grand old Tiger was in the yard munching on the last of the Newmont Farm grass. I felt a special song was in order so I cranked up the stereo and we all trooped outside to sing Sgt. Pepper. (Special subset of Best Christmas present ever – Best Christmas song performance ever. Hey, it was sung on Christmas Eve so it was a Christmas song. Hint. Do the math.)

So now we have another Highland Pony, Circle H MacKenzie, on his way from the west coast. Foaled in British Columbia of Scottish parents, he has spent the past year in sunny southern California bearing the oddly anglicized name of Kensington. In this economy, it is probably a really bad time to buy a pony. But some money came in from the estate of Judy’s now late father and I think the old horseman, one of the last actual cavalry, would approve.

MacKenzie is somewhere in the middle of America right now. Even assuming there could be traffic delays at some point, he will arrive before Christmas. And when he gets off that trailer, Judy will thank her dad for one last time. And, Madison Avenue, if you are listening, concerning the best Christmas present ever - it will never be a Lexus.