Gifts From The Heart

I don’t recall many Christmas gifts I received as a child except for the box of light-as-a-cloud divinity candies that Aunt Rita made for me and another for my brother, Ron. Such an unusual grown-up gift to receive as a child, and the thought of not having to share made it extra delicious. What I also remember about childhood Christmas is not what we received but how we came together with our cousins and made up a little Christmas pageant for our parents, who gave us full attention on Christmas Eve. I still see my parent’s smiles and chuckles, and how special it felt as a child to be taken seriously. Lasting gifts, indeed.

When we think back about gifts we received over the years, it is easy to identify those that stand out. I’ll call them gifts from the heart.

The original Advent Calendar

My friend, Heidi, tops the tree in her annual 25-Days-of-Christmas tradition created out of love and ingenuity for each of her three children, Becky, Jacob, and Ben. It all started with a wooden advent calendar that was given to the family when the children were tiny, and in the years ahead, refilled with surprises. The child who opened the door received a trinket.

As the children grew, Heidi decided to make it more fun and experiential by hiding an activity behind each door. Rudolph reindeer behind a door meant the family will watch the film, Rudolf, and eat popcorn that night.

Other doors had riddles, jokes, a scavenger hunt or mini trivia games to compete with siblings for a prize. Heidi began to wonder if that wooden box was a curse or a blessing. I think that all reading this will know the answer to her pondering.

Heidi and Jim’s children look forward to “25-days” more than their wrapped gifts under the tree. The 25-days’ bags lead to mysteries, jokes and challenges that brings the family together, not only promoting fun, but also strengthening their bonds for each other.

Heidi was determined to keep up the tradition once the children left home for university and careers. Each year she picks a new theme. As she told me, “Each child has a Christmas wish list but these are mundane things – new tires, a sweater, etc. Twenty-five days adds the sparkle to Christmas. I wanted to be that sparkle.” According to her children, she has accomplished her goal.

Heidi told me a story about son, Jacob, going off to college. As December days unfolded, he opened a numbered brown paper bag to discover his surprise. However, a bigger surprise came when he asked his roommate what he had gotten for “25-days”. His friend looked at him quizzically. Jacob suddenly realized that 25-days was something his family did; it was not a universal tradition.

Here’s how I learned about Heidi’s 25-days creations: One afternoon in October, I happened by Heidi’s house. Jim, enjoying a book on the porch, invited me to go inside and see what Heidi was working on. I was mesmerized by the felt Christmas tree skirt spread on the table. There was a confetti of colors, buttons, glitter, and embroidery threads within her reach as she worked. Heidi told me she was making a unique tree-skirt for each child and their partner. This year’s 25-days theme depicts things that each child loves, making each tree skirt as different as the child.

Suddenly it dawned on me the amount of creativity required to identify a theme and the amount of work and handicraft skills required to produce it. I thought back to her 25-days theme from last year – a family trip to London. The London theme evolved from Becky telling her mom that she wanted to take Heidi to the Chelsea Garden Show, because Heidi loves flowers and has a gift for flower arrangements. This led to Heidi and Jim thinking about how great it would be if the entire family could enjoy a UK trip together, to include the flower show and other things of interest to each family member.

The clues were fun and the destination grew clearer over time. One activity was to find a clock tower in their city. The first one who sent a photo to Heidi and Jim won the prize for that day. One of their children has been known to open the clue at 12:01, heading out in the dead of night to be the winner for the day. No names. A treat of Scottish shortbread cookies was a strong clue to uncover the theme. The Radford kids love a game called “Ticket to Ride.” When they received “ticket to ride London”, it had their tickets to London. This was an unusually extravagant gift for the Advent calendar; others over the years have been no-cost or low-cost, but equally cherished.

I asked Heidi if I could check in from time to time and watch progress on all three tree skirts. Secretly, I wanted to query further about this extraordinary gift of the heart. She seemed pleased to tell me about the family tradition she has created for her children. Over my visits, here is what I learned from Heidi.

“On the first of December, each adult child and their partner receive a box with twenty-five brown paper bags decorated with a cut-out tag announcing a number 1-25. This year they received the felt tree skirt decorated with a design that is meaningful to that child, and a few felt ornaments already attached so that it is pretty right from the start.

Every other day they will find an additional ornament to add to the tree on small Velcro holders that are numbered to enable the scene to unfold. On alternate days they will find a candy treat tied to the theme, or Christmas jokes, trivia quizzes or scavenger hunts. Heidi’s priority is to focus on experiences, either things for partners or siblings to actively do together or memories of experiences brought to mind based on the ornament. 

For example, Becky loves to travel abroad so her ornaments depict the fifteen countries she has visited outside the U.S. The countries are not identified by something as obvious as a flag, but a symbol of an experience she had in that country. Only she will know what country the ornament represents. A Harry Potter train is the symbol for Scotland, elephants for Thailand, crazy flowers for the Chelsea Garden Show in London. Becky loves mid-century décor, thus Heidi chose the secondary color palette.

I contacted Becky for her take on the tradition and she told me this, “Gosh, where to start?

"Our mom has always gone so above and beyond to make holidays and traditions in our family memorable and full of love and joy. The 25 Days of Christmas started when we were in pre-school with small prizes like seashells and dimes. "

"As we grew up, though, the tradition grew, and each year our mom started planning for the 25-days months and months in advance in order to plan  a theme or a different twist to make it unique and fun. It’s turned into something that we look forward to each year, even as adults, because it gets us into the holiday spirit and reminds us every day in December that mom is thinking of us…I love my mom so much and am just so lucky that I get to have her in my life.”

Jacob and his partner, Rachel, live in Colorado, which is a good location for Jacob who is a snow scientist. Their tree skirt is a snow scene and the ornaments show experiences they enjoy in Colorado in the snow.

Heidi made a Kitty Snow angel ornament for their cat Sprite who died this year.

There is a Jacob snowman wearing a replica of the winter hat he wore as a child and a nurse snowwoman depicting Rachel.

They love to hike and explore the parks. This year they cannot come home for Christmas but can expect a special surprise on December 24 – passes for all the national parks. As Jacob told me, “Mom always makes sure to keep the tradition going in new and exciting ways and to get it to us no matter where we are in the world.”

Ben and Yaoyao are political science professors at UNC-Charlotte. They enjoy feeding the birds and watching the antics of squirrels in their yard.

For their 25-days theme, Heidi depicted the squirrels doing the activities that Ben and Yaoyao enjoy doing with each other, like playing guitar and the guzheng instrument, playing board games, or drinking cappuccino. The tree skirt is lined with adorable pandas, a special animal to Yaoyao who is from China.

When I contacted Ben, he wrote about the early years and the changes over the years.

“Over time, more traditions within the advent calendar tradition emerged. One of mine and Yaoyao's favorite items was the scavenger hunt. Once a week (roughly), the item in the advent calendar would be a very specific yard decoration. The first person to send mom a picture of that item "in the wild" would win a prize, usually a $5 gift card. The items we'd have to find were things like "a complete nativity scene" or "Snoopy" or "pillars decorated like candy canes." They were often surprisingly difficult to find and we'd have to drive or walk around looking at Christmas decorations for a long time to find them.” 

“When we were in middle school and high school, we would sometimes take family shopping trips during the holidays to purchase gifts for the needy children whose Christmas wishes were hung on the tree in Denny's. This would usually mean mom and dad would give each of us some money (maybe somewhere between $25 and $50) to select a child to purchase a gift for. I think that this family event was sometimes one day in the advent calendar."

"In recent years, the 25-days tradition is built around a theme. One theme was North Carolina. Most of the items in the 25-days were either made in NC or otherwise related to NC. Mom doesn't tell us the theme; she likes us to figure it out.”

Ben concluded, “I think, counterintuitively, the 25-days have become more important as we've gotten older rather than less important. The 25-days are a way for my mom to connect with us and make sure we have holiday joy even if we're far away. I think she likes the creativity of putting them together, shopping for appropriate 25-days gifts, and the mischievousness of including mystery themes or the scavenger hunts.” 

The Radford Family - Ben, Rachel, Becky, Ben, Yaoyao, Heidi and Jim in Scotland

Heidi and Jim are delighted that the kids are vested in this tradition. One way they can tell, is that If the kids are traveling at Christmas, they take the 25-days bags of activities with them. If they come home for Christmas, they bring it with them.

Heidi explained, “Each of the Advent gifts keeps the fun alive. Keeps them young. It reminds them of important things like loving each other and giving from the heart to others that you do not know.  For example, every year there is keep-one-give-one day. They might find a gift card with the instructions to give it to someone they don’t know or a Starbuck’s gift card with instructions to give to the person standing in line behind them.”   

As Heidi scrambled to complete the project and mail them to arrive before December 1, she said, “This is what’s keeping me off the streets this week.” And I thought, more like months. Then again, this is the Heidi I’ve come to know. She is always thinking of others and something she might do to brighten their life.

One of her gifts that touched me deeply, was a mosaic sidewalk and garden she created for our neighbor friend, Sunny, who was taking care of her terminally ill mother at home. Sunny was sad because she had no time to work in her garden. The garden path that Heidi designed and built drew neighbors from all over the neighborhood, also providing the human contact that Sunny needed during these difficult months. Heidi is the kind of friend some of us are lucky enough to have.

A benefit I received from writing this blog about Heidi was to revisit some of the treasured gifts I’ve received from my family and friends, and to uncover the secrets of master gift givers. I could write volumes on their thoughtful gifts. Snapdragons in the dead of winter; a butterfly landing pad; a jar of apple chutney; a tin octopus with 8-arms to hug me every day; pollinator flower seeds; stones from the river; homemade granola; a listening ear; kind words. They are touchstones that connect me to their love.

Gifts from my children and husband are also ones that keep on giving.

When my daughter, Bronwyn, was five years old she went on a trip with her father to Washington, DC, and bought a small blank book with her own money to bring back to me because she knew I love to write. I put her photo in the book to remind me of how perceptive she was at a young age. I use it to record birthdays. I’ve held the little book once each month for 38 years when I check it for upcoming birthdays and I remember the day she gave it to me and all the love that flows from it still.

As an undergraduate, Bronwyn spent a semester in Kenya with The School for Field Studies. Upon her return she must have given away some of her very dirty clothing to bring back six hand-blown wine glasses for me and a pitcher for her dad in her cotton duffel bag. While she would have liked to have kept these keepsakes from her time in the bush, she knew how special they would be to me. They still are.

Bronwyn has given me some of my most cherished one-of-a kind garments. One year she gave me a woven silk coat in all my favorite colors that she was able to buy from a European designer in Nepal who was closing out a line. The elegant coat would have looked beautiful on her but she gave it to me, and to top it off she had a cashmere scarf made to match the coat. I’m the talk of the town every winter. A gift that keeps on giving.

She also made sure I looked good and stayed warm on my winter walks with a matching hand crocheted ear band, neck warmer, and finger-less gloves that she crocheted in my favorite color combination – grey and gold. And then last year, a woven gold poncho from Ecuador. What a loving daughter I have who shows me how much she cares by the thought she puts into her gifts for me. It is always evident.

When COVID struck in 2020 and the world went into lockdown, Bronwyn, planned a zoom trip to a centuries old olive tree farm in Croatia where we would learn how to select the best olive oil from a charming The young producer who took us on a tour of the groves and then to the press in his cellar. He taught us It was a remote birthday party surprise when gatherings were not permitted.  

She asked her dad to secretly invite several of my closest friends to join us on the virtual journey and to set up the props we were instructed to have on hand. Our host taught us to buy extra-virgin olive oil stored in dark glass bottles, a harvest date of no longer than one year ago, single country of origin, and designations labeled PDO or DOP, or with a taste label such as “bold” or “bright.”

We were all in such a low point not knowing if anyone would make it through the pandemic, and it was just like Bronwyn to come up with something super special to uplift me on my birthday.

My son, Chas, lives a simple life in terms of consumer goods, but a rich life in terms of his thoughts, imagination and interests. I prize the gifts he made for me such as a Calder-like wire sculpture (mine has wings) constructed during the night on Christmas Eve, or this ring box.

 It took me many years to appreciate what I thought was a whacky Christmas gift that Chas gave to me five or six years ago. It was an 1800’s colored etching of “vegetable sheep,” that I thought was a joke but in recent months learned how significant the gift. Chas is patient.

The importance of the gift was revealed in my favorite non-fiction book this year, Every Living Thing, by Jason Roberts. The book was given to me by one of my oldest friends, Sally, who knows how interested I am in early botanists. The book describes the rivalry between Carl Linnaeus and Georges-Louis Buffon, to survey, name, and catalog all life on earth.

I was surprised when I came to the part that talked about Linnaeus being perplexed at his inability to classify vegetable sheep, that were rumored to exist. Were they an animal or a plant?

As it turned out, explorers who described it as a vegetable sheep were trying to depict cotton plants in South America. It’s like a vegetable (plant) and a sheep (animal).  Chas’s gift was an actual etching from one of these naturalist field journals. His gift was waiting to be understood and appreciated. I certainly do now!

On our first date, my husband gave me a necklace made from 1,000-year-old Peruvian beads. I immediately thought the romance might be promising. However, six months later, he gave me a sleeping bag for Christmas. I hate to camp. Seeing my crestfallen face, he said, “I thought it was a romantic gift because I chose a sleeping bag that zips to mine.” Whmmmm.

One year he gave me a down travel pillow to soften our vagabond life. It rolls up and is secured with cotton ties to fit well in a small bag. It is an essential item for all my travels, so important, in fact that I have retraced miles in order to retrieve it from a hotel where it was left behind. Now that was a gift from his heart (or head) to mine.

Venus Flytraps by Stan Harmon, Morehead, NC

On one of my birthdays, both Charles and I were overseas on consultancies. I was in Southeast Asia and he was in Africa. When I arrived home, I looked out my back window to see helium balloons tied to something in my leopard plant garden. At closer look I saw a flash of stained glass and went out to investigate, to find two, 3-feet tall glass and copper Venus flytraps made from a highly sought after glass artist, Stan Harmon.

While we had seen these at his home-studio, he declared them too much trouble to make and sell, even though I coveted them and begged. Somehow Charles’s long arm from Africa twisted Stan’s who installed them with balloons for my arrival. And lucky for me, Stan produced a third because it bothered him to visit our garden - the rule of 3's - in play.

My husband refuses to succumb to Hallmark Holidays. He buys things for me because it is the right gift, not a prescribed time. For example, he went underground to get into Timbuktu when it was closed to foreigners and he bought ancient beads for me, thousand-year old marbles, and old carved wooden windows from Timbuktu. Precious gifts, not under a tree, or for my birthday, but ones that he knew would delight me. So if I have nothing in my stocking from him, I remember that his gift of kindness to me 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year has value beyond anything that Amazon can offer.

During the last two years that my brother Ron was ill with Parkinson’s, I visited him and his wife, Ann, on a regular basis. Ann would often cook a big meal and invite other nearby relatives so I could see everybody at one time.

Over many years of marriage, Ann and Ron visited Jugtown and Seagrove potters each year for their kiln openings and purchased a piece of pottery to add to their collection, which now lines shelves around the kitchen-dining area.

For each of our dinners, Ann served potato salad in a green scalloped bowl, from Teague’s Frogtown Pottery. It became my favorite from their pottery collection.

Of all her bowls, she also seemed to like this one best. Each time I saw it, I commented on the perfection of the size, shape, and color.

One day as I was gathering my things to leave, she handed me the bowl. I told her I could not take it but she insisted.

She said, “Look around you. I have many bowls.”

“But this is your favorite,” I countered.

She replied, “That’s why I want you to have it.”

And thus, thanks to Ann, we unlock the recipe for giving gifts from the heart.

Written by Deborah Llewellyn

Beaufort, North Carolina

December 2024

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Deborah.llewellyn@gmail.com