Christmas Is Coming

You can find photo (credit) here

It was 1983 and Cabbage Patch Dolls were the hot item for Christmas that year. My mother was working a full time job during the day, trying to run a sewing business on the side at home at night for extra cash, and raising two little girls on her own. Purchasing one doll was going to be hard enough financially, but two? Forget it. It was completely out of the budget. So that Christmas she hand made my sister and I each a "Cabbage Patch" doll.

They were completely made out of cloth with knots and puckers for a nose and mouth. She even painted the eyes on and had sewn on yarn hair. (I got a real Cabbage Patch for my birthday 6 months later)

I still have her. She lays wrapped in tissue paper in my cedar chest. She wears a blue dress with a white lacy apron and without a speck of dirt anywhere one her. When my divorce was being finalized during the Christmas holiday a few years ago, my mom could sense that I was down. She told me about how she would feel a little blue on Christmas Eve when my sister and I were with Tim and my stepmother for the night, so she'd drink wine and finish working on our gifts. She then asked if I had ever really looked at the fingers of my doll. I replied that I had not, turns out ma was three sheets to the wind finishing our dolls, and gave them each 5 fingers and a thumb! We both had a real good laugh.

I am about the same age now as she was that Christmas, and I cannot phantom the stress she must have felt around the holidays. Being a parent is tough enough without adding doing it alone and with bills, but she did the best she could. One of my most vivid childhood memories was listening to the sound of her sewing machine run as I fell asleep each night. If I listen hard enough, I can still hear it.