The gift you didn't think you wanted

My mother has always been really good at gift-giving. She has a knack for choosing gifts I wouldn't have expected, wouldn't have thought I wanted, things that called out to her "she might like me!"

I'm sitting in my living room, drinking coffee (rather heavily laced with Irish cream) out of a mug she put in my Christmas stocking some fifteen years ago at least and thinking about Christmas. Thinking about my mom. I have gifts yet to buy, and twelve hours from now the kids will be in bed, the Christmas pageant at our church long over. I have Christmas baking to do and a lot of tidying and cleaning to finish up. Many things are decidedly last minute this year, a procrastinator's affliction that has rarely affected my mother. 

She gets her shit together in good time. Even last year, which, when you think about it, is amazing. All the driving and errand-running and preparations she did. And we had no idea, no clue what was happening, what was about to happen.

Christmas was odd, with her upstairs in inexplicable agony, us downstairs opening gifts and giving each other knowing glances, casting our eyes up the stairs, wondering, concerned. She was absent and later told me she had little memory of that day, but we had her prior thoughtfulness with us downstairs. Warm socks. Chocolate. Coffee beans. Her tokens of consideration that have long been my favourite part of Christmas morning: my stocking, now a gift bag as my stocking now resides alongside my husband's and our children's in our own home.

She is so good at choosing gifts. I feel very much that I have failed to develop that talent at selecting small things that declare to the recipient "I thought of you" as every gift should. It is one thing to give a gift requested, a gift that fills a known need, but quite another to give a gift that fills a need unrealized, a need or desire the recipient did not know existed until the moment the gift is received and it shines a light on the need or desire it so instantly fills. 

To show someone that you think of them when you are away from them. That you carry them, carry their needs and their wants and their wishes in your heart always. That through your day you are thinking of them, considering them, wishing them well, wishing joy for them.

That is a gift.

It has me thinking about the greater Christmas celebrations in which our family participates. It's a challenge, as people who celebrate both popular culture Christmas, with Santa Claus and a tree and magic reindeer, as well as religious Christmas, with Jesus and Mary and Joseph and angels and shepherds and stars. How to explain to our children how one relates to the other? What, exactly, can they possibly have to do with one another?

And then I thought of my mother.

It's about the gift you didn't expect to receive, that you didn't know you needed, the gift you didn't think you'd want. An infant saviour? While under an oppressive and foreign regime? What use is that? 

It's the gift you didn't think you wanted. 

a bubble dress for Christmas

It's been reeeeeaaaally cold for the past few days.

Last week it was warm. And any Ottawan can tell you, warm weather is not sunny weather. It's usually grey. Warm = grey. Sometimes rainy, usually snowy, but not bright. No, if you want bright sunny weather you have to wait for the cold. And not that sissy, wamby-pamby cold, either, but the deep, down, freeze-you-to-the-marrow cold. You know, the quality Canadian cold. Yesterday we had it and I wanted it. But we also had an entirely trashed living room and a sleep-deprived, under-caffeinated mommy with the temper of a newly-awoken bear in the spring. This morning brought -26C temperatures (that's -15F for you 'Murikans), a bright, unobstructed golden sun, and a well-rested, far-better-caffeinated mommy. Bad for anyone with plans to take leisurely walks outside, but good for me. Kidlets ate breakfast and I hurriedly made the living room presentable. Because I really wanted to show you a bit of what kept me at my sewing desk day after day, night after night back before Christmas.

I can not even begin to tell you how proud I am of this dress. I mean, we're talking way beyond that healthy, "ya done good" sort of normal pride. No, I'm into full-on, first-cornice-of-Dante's-purgatory, sinful pride. I want her to wear this dress everywhere we go and then faux-modestly quip, "Oh, her dress? Oh yeah, I threw that together one night before Christmas. No big," while inwardly yelling "Booya! 'Spect!" Because I'm  all street like that, you know.

The dress is printed fine-wale corduroy, fully lined with a brown and turquoise-dot cotton print (previously seen here and here) with white fine-wale corduroy piping at the waist and a single-button closure at the back.   I used this tutorial to get the general idea, but drafted my own pieces based on Peanut's measurements. I had drafted a paper pattern back in October for Peanut's fairy costume (which I've only just realized I neglected to feature in a post) and used that as the basis for the bodice of the dress. The skirt? Well, to be quite honest I couldn't even begin to tell you the proportions of the skirt. It was late and I was highly caffeinated when I started working on this. I can't remember anything about the math I used to arrive at the drafted pieces I did, and I drafted directly onto the yard goods I used (risky, I know, but I couldn't very well try a muslin on my 4yo and expect to keep it a surprise, could I? And therein lies the terror of sewing surprise garments for older children: what if she loves it but it doesn't remotely fit??) so I can't so much as give you a hint in that regard. Check out the tutorial I linked above: that woman did a way better job of being helpful than I am going to be, I'm afraid. 

But do ogle the dress some more. Oh yes. do ogle this dress.

It's a perfect fit. Perfect. If I had made a dozen muslins and tried it on her countless times before I cut into the cord I could not have made a better fit. I have no idea how I managed it. It was sheer dumb luck (and do read that with Maggie Smith's Prof. McGonagall-voice: it's how I hear it in my head and it's awesome).

Pride aside, though, the very best moment with this dress happened before she ever tried it on. She opened it Christmas morning, snatched it up out of the paper and held it at arm's length and exclaimed, "I love it!! Thank you, Mommy!!" and threw herself into my arms, hugging me. The dress coming together exactly as I wanted it to is good. But making my little girl rapturously happy with something I made with my own two hands? Way better. Way, way better.

merry and bright

Christmas came.

The final week of advent was unexpectedly and somewhat unavoidably hurried. It was determined that we needed carpeting in our living room, which put a slight hitch in our Christmas preparations. But we shifted things - all of our toys and living room furniture including our decorated Christmas tree - and plans and sacrificed a little a lot of sleep and got most things done. We got what mattered most done. And it was lovely.

Joy and family and closeness and craftiness (I have so many projects to share and as soon as it stops snowing long enough to be sunny and take some clear photos I'll do just that!). A simple pageant at church on Christmas Eve, full of chaos and noise and childish antics in the pews and in the aisles. Some immeasurable happiness and thankfulness beneath the tree from our girls - enthusiastic hugs and exclamations of "Thank you, Mommy!" over handcrafted gifts of love lead me to believe we're doing something right with these two. Hearty family meals, cookie baking, candy making, sneaky candy cane gifting (stuck 'em in the mail box slots of the other apartments in our building on Christmas Day) and more Christmas-music-listening dancing than I could begin to recount.

Belatedly, a merry Christmas to you and to yours, and may you be blessed in the new year.

a happy Christmas

 That you may know today, more strongly than yesterday, that you are loved.
You are deeply, deeply loved
A merry and blessed Christmas to you and yours.