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The Christmas Dress
Christmas 1996
My mother,
who claims she began stitching her own clothes when she was 10,
sewed and knitted for us throughout my childhood. The coming of
Christmas meant hours at the machine while we were napping or in
school, and more hours in the evening in a comfortable chair in the
living room, hand-hemming or plying her knitting needles. Every
fall, she’d hand-roll the hems on a dozen white squares of fine
cotton for Dad’s annual supply of handkerchiefs. And the doll
clothes! One year she stitched four complete ensembles for the new
dolls Santa brought my sisters and me; she routinely turned out
wardrobes for every doll, from Betsy Wetsy to Ginny to Barbie.
I admit to being less enchanted
with her sewing skills when I had to wear the fruits of her labors.
Frugal when it came to fabric, she would buy a bolt and sew for all
four daughters. Now, that sounds real cute, unless you’re number
three in the line and you’ve had to endure the same green and brown
plaid in three incarnations. Inevitably, by the time it got to
Marty, the youngest, it was worn out and she got new. (Okay, so
maybe that’s just the way I remember it.)
When I was in second grade at
Rocky Ridge, a one-room schoolhouse about a half-mile across a
cornfield from the farm, I had begun coveting store-bought clothes.
Yes, store-bought, in all their shoddy workmanship, sizing-stiffened
fabrics and off-the-rack glamour. And I began lobbying for one such
dress—a dress-up Christmas dress—early in the fall. I wanted
ruffles. I wanted chiffon. I wanted pastels and crinolines. I wanted
to look “different”—I wanted to shine. And I didn’t for one
second consider that I may have been hurting my mother’s feelings,
denigrating her womanly skills, flatly denying her value as a
prudent provider. I was in the grip of a lust unlike any I had ever
known. (The Ginny doll episode came later, I believe—but that’s
another story.)
Our school Christmas party was
the last day of school before Christmas vacation. The afternoon
before, Mother handed me a large box—a dress box, though I’d
never seen one before. Inside was the most beautiful (and the most
impractical) lavender chiffon dress I’d ever laid eyes on. The short
sleeves puffed, lace delicately edged the Peter Pan collar and a
wide sash tied at the back in a fluffy bow with trailing ends. The
chiffon skirt floated over a darker lavender underskirt—just enough
layers to make me swoon. I know I squealed with hysterical delight.
I know I shrieked that this was the best present I’d ever gotten. I
woke at 4:00 the next morning to dress, then fell asleep on the
bench in the living room waiting for the rest of the house to get up
and admire my ethereal beauty.
This story has no ending. More
recent chapters include “When My Own Teenagers Won’t Wear the
Clothes They Beg Me to Sew” and “Mom, Will You Make My Wedding
Gown?”
And in honor of my mother and
her deeper understanding of a young girl’s desires, we’ve given our
Abbie, now almost 7, her own fire-engine red peignoir set from the
rack at Wal-Mart. It’s a good, seasonal color—I wonder if she’ll
want to wear it to school?
© 2005
Anne Biggs |
