I’ve always dreamed of white Christmases. I was born in Chicago, but we moved almost immediately to Brooklyn, and then to Long Island. We moved to Oklahoma before I was 5, and I’ve lived in Arkansas for over 30 years now. I don’t remember much about my very early life in the Northeast, and it was almost unheard of to have a white Christmas in “tornado alley.” That didn’t diminish my love of everything Christmas.
I remember a Christmas when my brother and I both received 3-speed English bicycles. Neither of us even dreamed of such a present. My parents were amazing to keep the secret. This was a gift that kept on giving for many, many years of bicycling around our neighborhood.
The first time I ever MADE a Christmas present for anyone I was about 11 or 12. My mom was VERY good at making clothes and knitting. She altered all of my dad’s shirts, sweaters and sports coats because he had damaged his left arm falling off a horse when he was three. Back then, they didn’t know as much as they do now, and they were only able to save his arm and hand, leaving it shorter than his right and his hand was almost completely useless. I didn’t realize as a child
- that my dad was considered ‘disabled’ my many who didn’t know him well,
- how special my mother was to alter all his shirts, and knit cardigan sweaters for him. I think she could have knitted a bus, she was so talented.
- how much patience it would take to try to teach her daughter to sew and knit.
I knitted a scarf/muffler for my grandmother that Christmas. It was really terrible, with lots of missed stitches and places where I got too tense and jammed all the stitches together. Other places, the stitches were really large, warping the whole thing out of shape. My grandmother’s favorite color was red, and so I knit her a red muffler to keep her warm when she walked the ugliest dog in the world, a pug named, “Unkie.” That Christmas we had traveled to Nevada, Missouri, to spend the holiday with her and my grandfather. He was bedridden with Multiple Sclerosis. I don’t remember him ever standing, but I have pictures of the two of them, looking amazing, all dressed up in the latest style of the day. (Sorry for a bit of rambling – the memories are swamping me.) My grandmother unwrapped the muffler. She sat, holding it in her hands. Then she cried. I’m tearing up as I type this. She GOT the love I sent with the muffler. She GOT it.
Sometimes I find things, particularly online, during the year that I think people I care about might really enjoy and I send them. Sometimes I wait for Christmas. Sometimes I can’t. Most Christmases I still try to make things for people. I hope they GET the love that is sent with them.
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