When my kids were growing up, I was the queen of Christmas. Everything after Thanksgiving was devoted to this merriest of holidays.

Out came the boxes (and boxes) of decorations and the Christmas CDs. We had 20 ft ceilings in the great room so I would have a 12 foot Frazier Fir delivered and put next to the fireplace and in front of the two story window. I would decorate it with hundreds of blown glass ornaments, old glass bead garland and thousands (literally) of little white lights

There were live greens on the staircase, the mantel and balcony railing and it spilled outside to the front door and exterior windows. It was a Christmas house to be sure.

Christmas also included light drives followed by hot chocolate, pioneer night, caroling with my Sunday School class of 5th and 6th graders, piles and piles of presents, homemade cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning, a giant open house for family and friends and reading one of my favorite Christmas stories, “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry.

Circumstances were very different in 2004.

I was divorced and in my beautiful little house in Goshen. We were waiting for Ali’s stem cell transplant and because of the recurrence and erratic medical schedule I had been unable to work since April. My ex-husband made our house payment but after that I had $800 a month in child support to live on. Our gas bill alone was $200-300. Needless to say, I was way behind on bills and had nothing put away for Christmas. I was going to go to Barnes and Noble to work part time to buy Christmas presents but Craig gave me some money to catch up so I would not be away from Ali before this serious and possibly fatal procedure in January.

It was difficult to accept this wonderful gift. I was prideful and I was embarrassed. The road from the 12-foot Christmas tree to digging up change to buy milk and having someone pay bills for me was extremely humbling.

Thankfully, his generous offer got some of the bill collectors off of my back, but I still had little to give to my girls for Christmas. This, of course, to a former Christmas queen, was disheartening. I put a little aside for each of them, scraped together money for a tree—6 feet tall, but beautiful, and tried to include some of our old traditions.

The girls decorated their little tree that they had had since they were 3 and 5. On it, all of the ornaments they made or I collected for them since they were babies. Someone found and old stuffed crow from Halloween and put it on top—it seemed appropriate for the wilder and crazier existence of the past four years.

Sometime in November, the hospital in South Bend had given Ali, Megan and I a ‘survey’ about what we liked to do, stores we liked, etc. I had forgotten about it, but one day in early December when we went in for blood-work, they handed us each a gift from the Samantha J. Hickey foundation.  That night, we went home, sat in front of the tree, made some cocoa and opened our gifts from the hospital.

When we began to open them, I couldn’t even believe what I was seeing. I cannot tell you the number of times that we gasped. Ali had received over $750 in gift cards to her favorite stores. There were cards for me totaling nearly $500 and $400 for Megan. We all sat there in stunned disbelief and then there was some joyful screaming.

The girls wasted no time in going shopping. I was so happy just to watch their excitement. It felt almost like someone else’s normal life.

As much as these gifts were like water in a desert after months of doing without, I cannot say that this alone is what set our Christmas apart.

For most years, we would go to Toledo on Christmas day to be with my family. This year, the Schuster’s were celebrating a week early, so the girls and I, Craig and Lukas celebrated our Christmas on December 18th. We pretended it was Christmas morning. Cinnamon rolls baked in the oven and in a strange turn of events, piles of beautifully wrapped presents sat under the tree.

As we took turn opening presents, there was a sense of awe. The face of the giver, had difficulty holding back a smile…as they had taken special care in picking out each gift.
There were screams of joy and even some tears. Ali bought me a hodgepodge of all my favorite things, Craig bought me the 1965 version of Mystery Date, and Megan actually bought me a little TV and DVD player for my bedroom. Like opening the gift cards days before, there was a continual sense of stunned disbelief.

What became evident by the end of our celebration, was that each one of us had taken our gift cards and purchased gifts for each other. Despite having no extras for months and months, my beautiful girls learned first hand the true meaning of Christmas. It was “The Gift of the Magi” re-written. These gifts were born of sacrifice and were given with a profound sense of love. It showed me that they understood that the greatest gift we have is in each other.

It was a Christmas house to be sure.

Ten days later, we found out that this Christmas would be Ali’s last.

When I think about that morning, I cannot do so without thinking about the brave parents of a beautiful two-year-old girl, who like our Ali dwells with the angels.  Their gift, made my gift possible. Their gesture of kindness blessed us over and over again. It gave us the joy of imagining, me the gift of seeing them smile, and allowed each of us to show our love for each other in a tangible way.

I imagine that’s what the baby came for in the first place.