Eliza

December 17, 2018

“She’s been asking if there are any more gifts to wrap.” 

“Really?” I exclaimed. This was going to be my lucky day! Usually by this time of the month, I have had Linda’s Christmas gifts long since wrapped and under the tree, but time and temperament have finally joined hands and caught me in their web. I wrote about the “two strikes” Christmas gifts that didn’t make the cut this year. The church pew  she wanted me to cut to size for just inside our bedroom door—you know, that pew that no matter what I did was still going to be too big for the spot. I suppose we could have rebuilt the closet to accommodate those last two inches, but that idea seemed a little extreme. 

So the little cabinet I inherited from my sister became my next choice. It fit perfectly, but Linda claimed it for another room before I could finish rebuilding it. Strike two! Last Saturday after Izzi and Jo’s basketball game, we took a little run to my friend Ron’s to see if he had any antique drawer pulls for the erstwhile Christmas cabinet. While Linda fetched Ron from his main building, I wandered out to where he kept the bigger items, and one of the first things I stumbled into was an entryway bench seat that sizing it up by eyeball, looked to be just right. I literally ran out the door and meet Ron and Linda walking my way.

“Ron, do you have a tape measure?” I asked, almost out of breath. 

“I can get one,” he replied as he turned back to his main building. A minute later, he was back, tape in hand. I took it and quickly measured the bench. It was a perfect fit! 

“I’ll take it!” I said, reaching for my wallet. We hadn’t even begun to look for the drawer pulls, but Ron had said he knew he had some hanging around somewhere, and with a bit of digging, he produced a zip lock bag full. I asked him the price, and ended up taking the entire bag. I’ll have a few extras perhaps for a later project. 

Yesterday I picked up the bench on the way home from preaching in Dunkirk, and now have only to strip and refinish it. I wonder if I can get it done by Christmas? The long and short of it is, there is no way I can possibly manage if I also have to wrap Linda’s other gifts. Enter Eliza, who loves wrapping so much she would do it for free, even though it’s well worth it to pay her for her work. They’ll probably look much better than mine, to boot.

In the great scheme of things, finding this bench or having Eliza wrap my gifts are not big ticket items. There are much more significant issues abroad. But I am discovering that most of our lives are lived close to home, and it’s the little things that mean a lot. So tonight I am grateful to have found the one special gift I’ve been looking for, and for one special granddaughter who is making it possible to give that present on Christmas Day. Maybe.