Day 8: The dove

When I was a young girl, my grandmother made stuffed felt Christmas ornaments for our family. Bubba (her nickname from childhood) loved color and sparkle. She hand stitched several small doves out of colored felts, then adorned the birds’ wings and breasts with tiny beads and sequins, gave them sequin eyes and beaded crests. The doves were part of our family Christmas decorations throughout my childhood and beyond.

A few mornings ago, I dreamed that I was shopping for Christmas decorations. I stood in a fancy housewares store, looking at a large table on which were stacked several rows of blue and green sequined doves. My sister and mother walked over to join me, and the three of us stood looking at the sparkly ornaments. We didn’t speak; we just looked. As I reached to pick up one of the doves, my alarm clock went off.

Saturday, I opened the large plastic box that holds our Christmas decorations eleven months of the year. I was looking for the stockings, which I thought might be at the bottom of the box. I didn’t find stockings; what I did find, tucked into a corner of the box, was a small, felt dove. Blue and green, sewn together with small, even stitches, embellished with sequins and beads. I haven’t taken the dove out in years… long enough that I’d forgotten that I’d brought it with me when I moved away from Texas, just a few weeks after my grandmother’s death.

I don’t know what my dream meant, beyond that I miss my grandmother. This year, the little felt dove was the first Christmas decoration I set out, right next to her photo on our living room bookshelves.

To open the Advent calendar window for Day 8, click here:

The little felt dove is showing its age, the blue felt faded, a sequin missing, a couple of the stitches loose. That’s my grandmother in the background. She had a beautiful smile.

On this day in previous advent calendars:
2007 — Day 8: Pie and Sunshine
2006 — 8