I’ve never been great at answering the question, “what was the best gift you’ve ever received?”
Salvation? My children? Health? …. the list is long. But when pressed this year to come up with something tangible that was actually wrapped in paper, I had to say it was a Hallmark Store book titled, The Night Before Christmas.
What’s so special about a story we’ve all heard since birth?
This one records voices.
My friend recorded my kids’ voices reading the famous tale in another room while I was prepping a meal, wrapped the book and gave it to me the same day. My twins were around 10 yrs. old and my youngest around 8 yrs. old at the time.
I was so touched and gushed about what a thoughtful gift it was. I meant it but could not have known how PRECIOUS that book would become in the subsequent years.
My daughters voices matured and of course my son’s voice has changed dramatically. Every year that I pull the book out and open each page, tears stream down my face. I close my eyes to picture those little voices running through the house at Christmas…over a decade has gone by since that gift was given to me.
If you regularly follow my blog, you’ll recall my posts about the wedding I attended in Scotland this past summer. The bride’s mama was my precious friend of 20 years who lost her cancer battle three years ago. Her departure at the too-young age of 49 makes me clutch that voice-recorded Christmas book even tighter to my chest, knowing that she gave me that gift that was so much more of a gift that I realized at the time.
The first few years, I think the book was nicely placed on top of some other decorations in a regular Christmas box, packed away until the next year. A couple years ago, I began wrapping that book so carefully…storing it as if it were gold. It is gold to me.
As I contemplate gifts for others in years to come, I’ll search out books that also record voices. It is a treasure for parents and if the book remains in tact as time passes, grown-up kids will certainly get a kick out of letting their children hear them when they were young.
I stared at them. They were adorable! I suddenly thought about how the kids would name the horses or cows down the street when they were little. I didn’t have the heart to tell them back then that those cows we were visiting would end up in someone’s freezer by fall.
A few years ago, one of our 4H Moms had us over to plan out the year of crafts for our daughters. About an hour into the meeting, her daughter got up and said, “I’ll be right back, I need to go feed him.” I inquired about who she was feeding. Mom explained that every year her daughter independently purchased a small steer. She fed it daily and cared for it, eventually selling it the following year at fair.
I have to go order my turkey now. But, I’ll let the farmer choose one for me.
This beauty caught my attention walking into the bookstore at my daughter’s university in Virginia a couple weeks ago. Here in NY, a layer of frost had already covered our lawn. In Virginia, these flowers were still in bloom despite the orange leaves falling from the trees.
The Farmer’s Almanac (along with a few other sites I researched) reports that these Monarch beauties only survive 2-3 weeks after hatching from their chrysalis, yet discuss the 2,500-3,000mile migration from the North to Mexico and California beginning in October. I wonder how many actually make the trip since their life span is so short…?
“Monarch butterflies travel as much as 100 miles a day during its 3,000-mile migration south. During its migration, each butterfly relies on the huge volume of food it ate when it was a caterpillar for fuel.” – 