My husband was busy setting up the tree stand while I concentrated on locating and setting out all the small decorations that only a woman and her intuition can truly place properly. I had arranged the nativity on the mantle and began looking for the stockings. As is tradition in my family, my mother made two needlepoint stockings and gave them to my husband and me after we were married. She had given them to us on my birthday, October 8th. The same day she had her own baby girl.

When I was a girl growing up in Texas, I never got into needlework and chose to spend my time obsessed with “important” things like boys and keeping up on the latest version of who was dating who. Back then, I used to ask her why she spent so much time working on something that would only come out once a year at Christmas. She told me I would understand when I was older. To me that meant she didn’t want to talk about it. She was notorious for answers that never seemed to actually answer the question.

So, here I was looking over the stockings she had made, admiring the smart looking snowman on mine and the cowboy Santa on Blake’s. Maybe it was the nesting instinct, or maybe it was just genetics kicking in, but I thought to myself, “This is beautiful and I’m making one for my baby!” I announced my proclamation to my husband who met my statement with a grunt and request for me to bring him the socket wrench.

The next day, I called my mother and told her my plan. At first, she was a bit surprised that I would want to undertake such a task and asked me if I wanted some help. Being the self sufficient, modern woman I was, I told her I was sure I could handle it on my own. After all, I had seen her make stockings all throughout my childhood and it looked like a piece of cake.

I went to my local craft store and picked out a needlepoint stocking pattern that I knew my mother would be proud of. There were reindeer, snowmen, and a big Santa Claus right in the middle of a background full of snowflakes and trees. I bought the pattern and returned home to begin what was sure to my masterpiece. After arranging the thread and reading the instructions, I was confident that this would be a piece of cake. As anyone who has ever started their first needlepoint can understand, I soon felt like I might as well have decided to build my baby a mansion out of sugarcubes.

One mistake after the other, one stitch after the other, I soon became overwhelmed and disenchanted with the entire idea. I rationalized to myself that I would put the needlepoint stocking aside “for now” and return to it when I “could concentrate” on what I was doing.

It must have been about a week later that my mother came by to have dinner with Blake and me. She passed by the couch and light I had set up as my station for the stocking and asked me about how it was going. I explained that I just didn’t have time right now and I would pick it back up after that week was over. She agreed, and told me it was best to start again when I was ready.

After dinner, Blake went to watch some game while my mother and I chatted about relatives, my pregnancy, and everything else going on. Mother kept discretely glancing over at my needlepoint station, but not daring to let me know she wanted to jump in and help me. Finally she managed to “casually” ask me about the hoop hanging out of my sewing box. I admitted it wasn’t going as well as planned, and asked her if she had any suggestions.

The next day, I returned to my childhood home where my mother sat down in the chair where she had created so many needlepoint stockings before these for my sisters, their husbands, and all of the grandchildren before mine. I moved the only other mobile chair in the room next to hers and began the lessons. At first, I was resistant. I still wanted help, but I thought once I was shown how to do this, I could make it happen just like her hands had made so many beautiful scenes appear in string so many times before.

It took me three days of struggling through continental stitches and basket weaves before I finally relented and asked her for some help. I don’t know why, but I was ready for some accusatory lecture on how I hadn’t interested myself before and now I needed help. Instead, my mother quietly shared the intricacies of her work with the caring and respect of someone who was once her child, but now was a woman.

As the weeks went on, I became more and more confident in my needlework. Mother still jumped in to save me when one complicated stitch or another left me stumped, but as the needlework progressed, so did my abilities.

Eventually, the stocking was completed (three days before Christmas) and I couldn’t have been more proud of myself. I had my mother over for dinner the night that Blake and I hung the stocking on our mantel. It was a little piece of our forthcoming baby to help us celebrate the holidays.

Christine was eventually born and became the apple of our eyes. Blake and I saw more and more of my mother after she was born. Weekends, holidays, and the ever important Christmas morning were all shared with my husband, daughter, and mother. Before she was old enough to understand, we filled her needlepoint stocking with toys and goodies from Santa. Each Christmas was more perfect than the last.

It was August of 2006 that my mother gave into her courageous struggle with breast cancer. My daughter was approaching four years old. In my mind, I was sure that her memories were full of the last days. Those days were full of deviously cheery hospitals and encouraging, yet ultimately false reassurances. As a mother I was crushed. I wanted my daughter to know the woman who my mother had been. I wanted her to know where I came from. Instead she was left with the memories of the most painful time of her grandmother’s life.

That Christmas was especially daunting for me. Blake was amazing throughout the whole struggle. His own mother had passed when he was younger, so he knew what I was going through. It seemed so many years since that first, when he had set up the tree while I busied myself with the rest of the decorations. Christine was an absolute joy to see. It thrilled her to see Santa at the mall or even the man dressed up from the Salvation Army ringing the bell outside the supermarket. As far as she knew it foreshadowed fun, happiness, and most of all PRESENTS!!!

Christmas morning came and as usual. Blake and I were woken up at nearly five in the morning with Christina’s sweet voice. We all make our way downstairs to the living room where she was met with everything ‘Santa’ and I had looked so hard for at crowded stores in packed shopping malls. We made our way through all the presents and then we finally got to the stockings.

Christina went to hers and I felt a slight tinge of sadness that my mother wasn’t there to sit on the floor with her and inspect the candy and trinkets her needlepoint stocking contained.

I was more than a little disappointed that my mother wasn’t there to share this with me. She used to revel in the chaos that was Christmas morning. From the presents to the dinner, mother was ecstatic. She didn’t have to do anything other than watch her grandbaby while Blake and I prepared and set up the perfect Christmas dinner just as she had so many years before.

It was a couple for weeks later that I was sitting in my chair shoddily finishing a needlepoint for framing that my daughter walked up to the chair and sat next to me. “What are you doin’ mama?” she asked. I told her I was finishing a needlepoint for my friend Samantha. Christina asked me why and I told her it was because we were making a picture. She walked off with utter disinterest. I began to stitch and then began to feel the tears streaming down my face. I wasn’t sad; rather I was thankful that I finally understood what my mother meant all those years ago when she told me I would understand when I was older. I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I cried for my mother and her peace, my daughter and her youth, and for my own understanding of the craft that brought me to a revelation about my mother.

Since that time I have continued to practice my needlecraft. By no means am I an expert, but I am certainly a craftswoman. I can rest confident that my mother was right. I now understand.