Ninth Christmas

by Suzzanne Kelley

Despite the black slash across the upper fullness of her right cheek, and a knee joint broken and no longer bendable, she was still most beautiful to me.  Tall and slender, the quintessential dream girl.  A flurry of fiery auburn hair framed her face.  Big blue eyes and long black lashes promised fun times in the future, or a wink and a hug if you were feeling low.  She had ensembles for every occasion…from ball gowns to tennis togs, although she was incapable of dressing herself.  Her hands at the end of flawless alabaster arms reached out to me and pleaded for a hug.  Her only draw-backs were that she would never blink her eyes, and she couldn’t twist and turn.  Her name was Barbie.

When I think of Christmas, I remember my mom, a Barbie doll in her own right, albeit a short, brown-haired beauty.  At five-feet, one and one-quarter inches (never forget that extra quarter inch!) she was a dynamo who could do anything she put her mind to.  From helping Dad pull an engine out of our Chevy Carry-all, to belting out a tune on the accordion, or dancing to the Beach Boys Surfer Songs with her teen-age daughters, she was awesome.  And the Christmas of my ninth year, with money too tight for new gifts, she did her shopping at Sally’s (our name for the Salvation Army) one day while her kids were in school.  There she found treasure!  Two Barbies in decent shape…one for each of her daughters.  Naked though they were, marred and with tangled hair, she knew she could make something of these that would become a prize under our tree.

One cold, Alaskan November night, I could hear a vibrating, sort of familiar sound coming from our kitchen.   Ever inquisitive (well, down-right nosey) I snuck out from under my warm covers to see what was going on so late in the evening…way past everyone’s bedtime.  What I found was my mom, bent over her old portable Singer sewing machine, which she had propped up on our dinner table.   Pieces of shiny, elegant fabrics and ric rak, threads, little snaps, and scissors littered the table, and she was scrunched over the machine deep in concentration.  She somehow sensed my presence, and with eyes wide and an audible gasp, she swept her arms across the table, pulling all her work into her lap.  She scolded me back into my bed.  I thought her behavior curious, after all, what was the big deal if she wanted to sew all night?  I went back to sleep and gave it not one more thought.

But then, on Christmas day, my sister and I held our packages.  Two shoe boxes, which when opened burst with little dresses and jackets and one pair of matching shoes for each doll.  The Barbies, snuggled amongst the clothes, looked beautiful to us despite their damages.  They were cherished presents and we did enjoy them.

This day, as I think of the humble gift, the midnight hours spent assembling the gowns…each one so tiny and feminine…I wonder, what did she think about as she created our presents out of scraps and strangers’ discards?  There is no way she could have guessed that more than 30 years later, her daughter would still recall the joy resulting from her labors.  Her gift of love is the fabric that still wraps around us today and that is felt with a simple phone call or look.

My mom’s face, like my Barbie’s, has undergone changes.  Her knees are not as bendable as they used to be, and she doesn’t do much twisting and turning.  But she still holds out her arms to me, and she still gives the best hugs.