The Christmas I Remember Best

The Christmas I remember best was also the Christmas after my father lost his job. I was eight or nine at the time, so I didn’t really understand what was going on, but my mother tells me the day my father lost his job was also the only day she’s ever seen him cry.

I also didn’t understand the impact my father’s unemployment would have on Christmas, but my parents did. Thinking back on it now, as a parent myself, I realize their hearts must have broken as they thought about the much smaller Christmas dinner, the barren Christmas tree. So they did what any self-respecting parents would do: They set out to make that Christmas feel as unexceptional as possible.

They didn’t succeed.

They didn’t succeed because I remember the weeks leading up to Christmas with surprising clarity. I remember watching my mother disappear into her bedroom--where her sewing machine lived--with the express command that we were not to go inside when the door was closed. My dad played with us in the living room while she did who knew what, and neither of them ever explained. It never occurred to me to question what she was doing, so I didn’t.

They also didn’t succeed because I remember those Christmas presents better than I remember any others. I have a hazy memory of once opening up a keyboard (which my parents wanted me to have) and a boom box that played cassette tapes AND CDs (which I wanted me to have), but the two presents I got that year--a small handmade quilt and a muslin bunny rabbit with custom floral-print dress--stand out more than the others.

I slept with that quilt every night until I was, like, fourteen. Now it lives at the bottom of my cedar chest, waiting for the day when my own daughter will sleep with it, too, and appreciate the story of where it came from. I toted that rabbit around whenever my sister and I played house, since I didn’t particularly care for baby dolls. In fact, that rabbit was so iconic we decided that ought to be the secret signal of my engagement: When I brought a boy home wearing rabbit ears, my family would know I was getting married:)

My parents wanted that Christmas to feel just the same as all the others, and at the time, it did. I didn’t realize until years later that those presents had come from my mother’s sewing machine and not some store or catalog. But it is precisely because of where they came from that I remember that Christmas now. Far and away, that was the Christmas I remember best--and the one I treasure most.