Christmas rememberies . . .

One Christmas that stands out in my mind is the year that mom made me a dress. We lived in Boise, and I was nine. Somehow mom must have known that I loved the fancy dresses that my cousin, Staci Stokes wore . . . or maybe she just liked the style, too. Regardless, I did love Staci's dresses and wished that I had one. They probably cost a crazy amount - as the only daughter, she was a little bit spoiled. Anyway, what is especially funny about this memory is that I actually saw the dress well before Christmas. It's tricky to hide homemade gifts. The dress was hanging in mom and dad's closet and it caught my eye when I was in there one day for a legitimate reason. My little heart beat faster, but then it occurred to me that it might not be for me at all; it might be for April, or for somebody not in the family at all. Not wanting to completely ruin the surprise for myself I quickly exited the closet, but naturally continued to wonder about it for the remaining time until Christmas morning.
On Christmas morning as we walked from our room to mom and dad's for the devotional I couldn't resist peeking to see if that dress was out; we could easily see where gifts had been placed from the upper floor. I could hardly stand waiting through the devotional to find out that the pile that had that beautiful dress was mine. I was so thrilled when I found out it was.

That might have been the same Christmas that Nathan gave me a beautiful dress, too (wish I had a picture - it really was gorgeous). Obviously, he didn't make it, but I remember being so surprised that he had picked it out himself. I didn't know yet that Nathan was actually very good at gifting, but somehow in my mind it seemed inconsistent with his personality in general. Or at least with what I understood about his personality at the time. Now it makes sense. haha