In the middle of her living room, Gertrude Halberg gripped the most important basketball she’s ever owned.

For most of her 102 years, she’s loved Kansas University basketball. But even with a Christmas birthday, she thinks now that this is by far her favorite gift.

The signatures – from all of the players, coaches and even KU Athletics Director Lew Perkins – pop off the orange and white ball.

“Boy,” she said, rotating the ball in her hands. “Oh, boy.”

Halberg was born on Christmas Day more than a century ago, and since moving to Lawrence in 1929, she’s never had a Christmas present from her beloved Jayhawks. Until this year.

Thanks to the help of her friends and the assistance of Perkins, the team sent her the basketball as thanks for a lifetime of dedication to KU hoops. And, of course, as a present on a holiday that’s even more special for Halberg.

“It’s wonderful,” she said, examining the ball. “The ball, and everything on it.”

Her eyesight isn’t what it used to be; her hearing, either. But even after more than a century of Christmases, she answers question with a sharp tongue, a sense of humor.

Sitting around her living room, her friends Ruth Sarna and Gary Teske chatted with her about her birthday, about life.

The asked her if she has a birthday wish.

“Yeah,” Halberg said. “To get younger.” She laughed a little when she said it.

“You’re pretty sharp, huh?” Sarna asked.

Ruth Sarna, left, presents Gertrude Halberg with an autographed basketball from the Kansas University men's basketball team. Halberg, who will celebrate her 102nd birthday today, was an acquaintance of Phog Allen. Sarna surprised Halberg with the signed basketball last week.

“Oh,” Halberg said, “not too sharp. I feel pretty good, though.”

Sarna and Teske, who both work in ministry for Trinity Lutheran Church, say that Halberg has “bounced back” from a bout with pneumonia earlier this year.

It set her back a bit – she’s in a wheelchair now and has a nurse visit her at home for two hours a day, five days a week.

But she’s in physical therapy, and hopes to be back on her feet before too long, she said.

This week, though, she hasn’t had much time for therapy. A few days before Christmas, she had friends over to her house for a birthday party.

“So I had a lot to do instead of take therapy,” Halberg explained.

With her birthday party out of the way, she could focus on Christmas, when Sarna and Teske said her small family – a niece and a nephew – might come into town. She has no children of her own.

Sharing a birthday with the Christmas holiday hasn’t been easy, Halberg said. All of those years, she’d get one gift for both occasions.

She had one sister and three brothers, and even though it was her birthday, she said she’d get the same amount of gifts they did.

“I didn’t like it,” she said.

But because of friends both at home and on Mount Oread, this year she received at least one extra gift. And for Halberg this Christmas, it couldn’t have been better.