When I wrap Christmas presents I always think of Aunt Charlotte.  Back when she was a young woman and I was an eight-year-old, she stopped in after Christmas shopping to teach us how to wrap our presents.  For several years she had worked in a department store behind the Customer Service Desk wrapping presents for customers.  The store had given her special training so each employee could do a perfect job of wrapping.  No matter what the shape of the gift, it always look spectacular. This training made her an expert.

                I would watch as her skillful hands would clip off the proper-sized paper, slip it under the gift and begin folding and taping until the known present became the special surprise. Now, years later, I look at my completed wrapping and doubt that I would qualify as a customer gift wrap assistant.  Aunt Char would be so disappointed in me.

                Aunt Char was always the life of the party. She would put on funny hats and dance around. She’d tell jokes then laugh at them as we laughed with her.  She wore the latest fashions and occasionally hand them down to me. She gave me gifts of scatter pins and charms for my bracelet. She was the first and only woman in our family to strip the brown out of her hair and make herself into a red-head. No one approved, but she held her head high, not caring what anyone else liked. 

                Years went by, I left home; she got a divorce.  We lost track of each other.  Then one day we circled back around to talk again. How had we lost sight of each other in the whirlwind of life? I was now 68 and she was 86.  We chatted on the phone for two hours. Once again she bragged about that job she loved so much as a gift wrapper. We talked about how we had actually crossed paths without knowing it. She had lived in New Jersey and moved out—at about the time I was moving to New Jersey. We reminisced the time we both got knocked off a horse at the riding stable. We thought back over the many Christmas seasons when Aunt Char, her husband and cousin Billy came to stay the night.  We still dreamed of eating mom’s Christmas Jell-O salad with all its marshmallows, pineapple, walnuts and whipped cream. In our minds we again saw the heap of toys and gifts that tumbled out from under the real-pine Christmas tree.

                How had we drifted so far apart and why? There were telephones and emails making the lack of communication unnecessary. Now with both of us, as old as the hills, we looked across the valley between us. Family had not been as important as pursuing our goals, chasing our dreams and defying the limits that family had tried to use to bind us.  Neither of us had been “home for Christmas” over the years.  Now we shared our accomplishments with each other and were thrilled at the outcome. Lives all wrapped up, ready to go.  Merry Christmas Aunt Char, it looks like we both had good lives and did good works! Merry Christmas!