A Few of My Favorite Things

My poor mother. Little did she imagine when gave birth to me that she’d still be stuffing my Christmas stocking half a century later. In addition to the usual cotton balls and Band-Aids and Scotch tape, she always tucks in little surprises she’s found among her treasures. This year there was a rose-gold thimble belonging to a mid-1800s relative^footnote, and a small digital device onto which my no-longer-extant father recorded a message:

Lulu gave me a copy of her university’s 2007–2008 course catalog, which I spend hours paging through and daydreaming about what classes I’d take if I were 18.

My sister gave me an elegant chicken-shaped pocketbook with a bacon wallet, which I really needed.

Among other things, Mom also gave me a tiny old spice chest owned by my great-, great-, great-something Elias Naudain. I’ve loved it since I was little and can’t believe she gave it to me. She thinks it dates from the late 1600s.

Footnote

That was Annie Dorsey, about whom Mom wrote: “[like you] she was another free spirit of the family.” In 1863, at age 20, Annie traveled unaccompanied to eastern Canada and beyond via ship for many weeks, and kept a journal:

During the trip we saw but three sails and one steamer. We came within signaling distance of the steamer and could distinctly see the people aboard of her. She appeared to be an emigrant ship with hundreds of people on their way from Europe to the New World — each perhaps with dreams of future wealth soon to be acquired in the “Land of Liberty.” I pitied them for I knew what would be the fate of many: upon arriving in the States they will be put in the Army and before long many of them will occupy, not the promised farm in the far west, but a soldier’s grave in Virginia or Tennessee…