Oh the gifts we give and get throughout the holiday season! Sometimes they truly fulfill a desire, sometimes they elicit that weird smile that accompanies the phrase…” uh, gee…thankssssssss..uh…so much?” and the confused inner question (“what were they thinking????). Holidays require a sense of humor!
As a piano/music teacher for over 30 years, I have received my share of musical Christmas ornaments for the tree, mugs with the musical staff imprinted on the sides, curvy black and white keyboard flower vases and treble clef earrings. All gifts from appreciative students and their thoughtful parents accepted with grace and gratitude.
Not all gifts from family who are not with each other for most of the year are deeply personal although the gifting itself is sweet … another pair of fuzzy socks, a gift card to the supermarket, or a stick-on-the-wall light that comes on with a mere tap so you don’t fall down the cellar stairs.
But sometimes, there is a very special gift that is deeply personal, coming from the heart and hands of the giver and sent on purpose with love and directly to the heart of the receiver.
In my daughter M’s last year at an away-college, she would spend her evenings with her boyfriend who was a landscape architect major at the “studio” where the students worked on their design projects for the semester. A large long room for setting out displays and installations was the place for creativity.
Somewhere over the years I had waxed poetic over the little artsy crafted trees in specialty gift stores…some with leaves of jade, some with bare branches. And “M” had that memory tucked away on file in her “about Mom” data bank.
That holiday season I received one of the best gifts of all time: a hand-made wire solstice tree on a base of slate. M had crafted this over the course of that semester in the evenings at the landscape architecture studio…long 10 foot length pieces of the thinnest wire, twisted and wrapped with care into this little tree, it being naked and bare in the winds of winter, branches blown sideways into the elements. No craft kit, no instructions to follow… a creation from herself, a gifted crafter who loves to figure these kinds of things out as a puzzle. The tree was fixed into the base of slate with the help of her boyfriend’s father, a dentist who had some other tools and crafty ideas himself.
My surprise and delight was just what she had envisioned…! What a gift!
Each year this tree comes out onto my piano in December, with a red tinsel garland around the base and the single tiny red bulb hung in its center..so vulnerable, so simple and so ready to be present first to December and the dark and cold, then to the Solstice with that tiny ball of red..a berry of aliveness when everything is asleep underground, and finally as a reminder to keep the true spirit of Christmas by being still and present through simplicity and love.
Twenty years have gone by since I received this treasure…and today, on my daughter’s birthday…I send her a BIG hug and another THANK YOU for this little wire Solstice Tree… and for her own beautiful self who was our Christmas gift the year she “arrived”. Happy Birthday, Dearie, with love!
From Christine (Mom), The Greening Spirit
Me and M on her FIRST day of school (kindergarten) sooooo long ago!
This is wonderful and I love how you have the snow (I think it is snow) going through. When you move the mouse it changes the direction of the storm or flurries.
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WordPress is doing that Jeanette,,,a lovely touch for December!
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As the “boyfriend” in this story I remember those days in the studio fondly. This is a beautiful story Christine and what a great memory you have. I forgot that my father helped mount it on that base with the slate covering. We were struggling with that detail and like always in my life he comes through with some creative way to solve a problem. M and I would pass by this store in downtown Amherst and look at trees similar to this in the window. I remember she really wanted to buy you one but they were really expensive. We looked at it closely and said, we can make that. I believe I still have our first attempt buried in my attic somewhere. I’m glad this piece has brought you such wonderful and lasting memories. Merry Christmas Christine and Happy Birthday to M.
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Oh Dear dear Phil! How wonderful to hear from you! I am so delighted that somehow you saw this post (Melissa?) and that it was filled with happy memories for you too. You were and are still one of my favorite people I have known and I wish you, your family and your Mom and Dad the happiest of winter and Christmas seasons, with love from me!
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