What are the most important gifts you've received in your lifetime?
Every Christmas Eve of my childhood, I lulled myself to sleep with memories of all the Christmas mornings I could recall. I pictured my parents as they urged my sisters and I into our bathrobes and slippers. My mother stayed with us at the top of the stairs while my father turned on the Christmas tree lights. At last our parents let us rush downstairs and take down our stockings. After we discovered the candy canes with their handmade stick horse head covers, my parents made us sit down and take turns opening our presents one by one. Later I understood this meant we could appreciate each other's gifts and not just focus greedily on our own.
I continued my Christmas Eve ritual well into my teens, until my childhood Christmases blurred together. Certain exceptional holiday mornings stood out, like the Christmas my sisters and I got a gift that did not fit under the tree: Freckles, our first pony. Difficult to gift wrap something with four legs! (Especially a creature as hard to catch as Freckles turned out to be.)
With Love is the Thread just beginning its second week of publication, you may expect me to feel most grateful for the gift of becoming a published author. Yes, that gift is very close to the top of my list. But as the seasons shift toward autumn into winter and the longest night of the year approaches, I'm contemplating gifts I've received that cannot be wrapped any easier than Freckles. The gift of Kristine's friendship, which inspired me to write Love is the Thread. The gift of every relationship that brought me to her door in the first place, and all the friends who have grown into my life because of Kristine.
The gift that allows me to string words together, and the thoughts and emotions they represent. The gift of sharing those words with you.