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The Best Surprise Gift. Perfume from Paris For Three Cousins!

ma griff five

Ma Griffe by Carven…my first real perfume!

My two cousins and I received the most elegant present of our young lives when we were hardly even preteen girls. Another girl cousin was older than us…she had already finished college and off to begin her career. Honestly, I totally idolized her. She was beautiful and dressed in stylish and wonderful clothes. She was smart and funny and someone very adored by just about everyone she met.

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Oh my…how I hoped to be like Virginia when I grew up! She was planning to be a teacher and had completed all of  her certifications. I assumed that she would come back to our hometown after college. I thought that maybe…just maybe…she would teach at the high school in my home town! I figured that she probably would stay teaching in our town, meet a boyfriend and marry him at First Methodist Church. Isn’t that what everyone did?

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However, Virginia had way bigger dreams than our rather small town in Texas. She planned on seeing the world.

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What I did not understand was that Virginia was way ahead of the times. She was very independent and was not fearful at all of striking out on her own. Why I could not even yet go inside the little grocery store by myself with my mother waiting in the car. Virginia announced to the family that she had applied for a teaching job at a military base in Germany. She wanted to see the world and travel everywhere…she wanted to meet different people and speak different languages.

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What a shock! Virginia wanted to still be Virginia, but a newly invented Virginia who lived in another country. Wasn’t Germany thousands of miles away? She might forget about her three younger cousins who loved her so much.

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As it turned out, she never forgot about us. She would come home from Germany for part of her summer vacation. Virginia always wrote letters to her parents and brothers. She stayed in touch with everyone as she visited every possible country that she could. On one trip to Paris, she was thinking about her three younger girl cousins. We three were on our way to being teenagers. She thought we might need a little elegance. So…

 

Virginia bought each of us a small bottle of Ma Griff by Carven…REAL PERFUME!! And don’t forget…it came directly from Paris, France!!

 

 

I remember opening that package as if it just happened yesterday. I remember the green and white box that it came in and the pretty glass bottle. I just used a drop or so at a time. Honestly, it lasted until it was almost time for me to go away to college. The wonderful scent of Ma Griffe by Carven stays with me in my memory even today. I heard that they changed the formula in the early 1990s…maybe earlier. You can buy it on eBay and sometimes at those discount perfume stores at Outlet Malls. I believe that the company is still in business.

 

I have never bought any more beautiful bottles of Ma Griffe…MY FIRST REAL PERFUME. How could any other bottle compare to my perfume from Paris?  

I like to remember it for what it was…a present from Virginia that said…”You are on your way to being grown up! When  you wear this perfume, remember to always go for your dreams! Anything in the world is possible!” 

Thank you, Virginia for the best gift ever!

 

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/perfume/

 

17 thoughts on “The Best Surprise Gift. Perfume from Paris For Three Cousins!”

  2. What an awesome story!!! I love to hear things like that – we all need Virginia’s in our lives or to be Virgina’s to someone else 🙂 . Love it! Funny how it’s even more special because it’s from “cool” Virginia too 🙂

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  3. I think that I will go to one of the outlet malls and find out what it is like now! On one of the websites on Carven, they told all of the scents that they used to make the perfume…I should have included that on my post. I will look it up again!

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    • I still look up to Virginia…your Gayle must be just like my Virginia! Mine married a soldier she met on the base in Germany and they moved back to the United when he left the service. They had three children (of course, grown now) and live in Ohio. She is just the same as she was back then…very pretty and sweet and smart! One of my cousins who was also the recipient of perfume from Paris has already written to me today on Facebook about my post.She also vividly remembers when we received those gifts!!! It made impression on us…for sure!!

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  7. How funny, I was bought a bottle of the same scent when I was a teenager, and it was bought in Paris! It felt like the height of sophistication! Thanks for bringing back a nice memory.

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