Last week I went shopping for an Ugly Christmas Sweater for a party to which we’d been invited. It was the third store in as many days and still no Christmas sweaters, ugly or otherwise. Although not particularly enthusiastic, I had made the attempt and now with strike three affirmed that I could move on guilt-free. Since I was already in the store I decided to look around. Known mostly for its ‘dress for less’ clothing, this store also has a row of aisles at its opposite end lined with everything from picture frames and house wares to furniture and gift items at reasonable prices. Not really in a Christmas-shopping mood, I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Just wandering.
As I was browsing, I came across some decorative photo albums and thought of my eleven year old niece. Having recently seen her newly painted blue bedroom, I picked up the blue and green album with a retro 60s Mandela design, thinking she might like to put pictures in it of friends both old and new (having recently moved to rural Northern California from the San Francisco Bay Area). Then I looked behind me and discovered a lone jewelry-box size treasure chest among a collection of lacquered decorative boxes, perfect for the-hand-me-down jewelry I’d let her pick out the week before. Jewelry that came with a promise to wrap it up for Christmas along with one or two new gifts and an expressed regret that my husband and I weren’t able to do more for her this year.
The small wooden chest, a two-tone light green and cream color with pink flowers, carried a Parisian boutique stamp and showed manufactured wear in all the right places to give it that antique look. Lined in brown velvet with two brass handles at each end and a matching lock on front, it was like finding a gem amidst the non-descript, mass produced uniformity perched on the store shelf. I added it to my cart and went to the next aisle over, where I found a glass picture frame rimmed with flowers of delicately etched stems and pink crystal heads, a perfect home for a recent picture of the two of us; then, in the clothing bin at the front of the store, I found fluffy black and peach slipper socks waiting to keep her feet warm on these cold winter nights; and finally, in the accessories bin next to that, a jeweled handbag holder (shaped as a mini-purse) to hold her first purse, received on her birthday in September.
Across the aisle a display of porcelain kitchen accessories caught my eye. At Thanksgiving when my husband asked where our gravy boat was and I replied that we didn’t have one he mentioned that he’d like one. Sure enough, one gravy boat remained awaiting my arrival. And at a steal of a deal. I put it in the cart and wandered back over to the house wares aisle where an attractive set of black and cream dish towels with a rooster motif and red and tan borders caught my eye. I thought of my sister and brother-in-law who had mentioned getting chickens now that they are living in the country. In the cart it went, along with some matching pot-holders, on my way to the check out.
Suddenly, I felt the Christmas spirit, which had been largely absent. I didn’t need to pursue it to find it, only to be receptive to it finding me. And instead of an Ugly Christmas Sweater, I received the beauty of the season.
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