Gifts from the heart

Christmas is just a few days away and the presents are piling up. Wrapped in shimmering paper and adorned with bright bows, the boxes spill out of post offices and closets and collect beneath Christmas trees.

When the big day arrives, adults and children alike will rip through them eagerly, leaving behind a trail of boxes, ribbons, crumpled paper and the gifts themselves -- sweaters, books, high-tech contraptions, Teddy bears, earrings and coffee mugs. Some will be appreciated and used for a time, most will eventually be set aside and forgotten, and soon it will be another year, another Christmas.

But once in a lifetime, a present might arrive that is so unexpected or so meaningful it becomes frozen in time, its significance enduring even after the thing itself has been used up, broken or lost. Contrary to the high expectations set by advertisements this time of year, these memorable gifts usually aren't diamond bracelets or big-screen TVs. They are little things, often inexpensive or common -- a hand-knitted pair of mittens, a five-and-dime doll, a can of soup, or a hard-earned toaster.

A toaster for mom

It wasn't an easy winter for the Parks family. It was the early 1960s in Alaska, "tough years," Velma Parks recalls. Her husband had been laid off and her work hours had been severely cut. As Christmas neared, they realized they had little money for gifts and none to give their three teen-age children to buy presents they wanted to give.

"So we told them they would have to earn their own money," Parks said. "The boys could shovel snow and the girl could baby-sit."

After a few days passed, Parks asked her two sons and daughter how their efforts were going. Had they saved up any money yet? Linda and Ronnie had a few dollars put aside, but Jerry, the oldest son, hadn't done a thing.

"He said he forgot," his mother recalls.

A few more days passed, a pile of snow fell, and mom once again inquired about the money raising. Jerry still didn't have any.

"He said he had been playing Hot Wheels with his friend and forgot," Parks said.

Forty years ago in Anchorage the local theater had a tradition of showing "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" the Saturday before Christmas, and the Parks family always allowed their children to go.

"But this year was different," Parks said.

Two of the teens had earned enough money to pay their own way, but Jerry had once again forgotten.

"Well, I let Linda and Ronnie go to the movie," their mom said, "but told Jerry to stay home and see if he couldn't find some walks to shovel."

Christmas Eve arrived and the children's grandparents were in Anchorage for the day. The Parks sent Jerry with them back to their homestead that night.

That evening, as was the family's custom, the family opened their gifts.

"There was a tiny little package from Jerry," Parks said. "It was a matchbox with a note in it, saying my gift was in a closet."

It was a toaster.

"Jerry had remembered me saying, 'In all my married life, I never had a toaster,'" Parks said. "He had been shoveling snow and he had saved his money to buy me a toaster."

To this day, the memory brings tears to Parks' eyes as she recalls how she hadn't let her son go to the movies with his brother and sister and had sent him with his grandparents so he hadn't been there when his mother opened the gift he had worked so hard to buy. But Parks said she knows her son was "tickled" with how things turned out.

"He knew his gift was truly a surprise gift," Parks said.

She also recalls that she had the toaster for many years, bringing it with her when the family moved to Palmer in 1974.

A can of frog soup

Christmas Day 2000 seemed like most other Christmas Days for the Coon family, until the unexpected visitor arrived bearing unusual gifts.

The family, including daughters Stephanie Renwick and Lizzie Coon, were gathered around the Christmas tree that day in their Wasilla home. Everyone was still wearing pajamas and "none of us were exactly looking our best," Renwick recalls, when there was a knock at the door.

"All of a sudden, Mr. Bottjen bounds through the door hollering 'Merry Christmas!'" Renwick said. "I almost fell over, I was so surprised."

Larry Bottjen had been Lizzie's special education teacher at Iditarod Elementary years before. Lizzie, who is now 22 years old, is autistic and developmentally delayed. Bottjen has since retired from teaching, but over the years the teacher and student had stayed in touch with phone calls and occasional visits.

"Every time Mr. Bottjen calls Lizzie, she can't stop smiling," her sister said. "She looks as though she has won the lottery."

But even with this history of friendship, the Coons never expected Bottjen to appear at their home Christmas Day.

"Lizzie was ecstatic. She couldn't believe it. We couldn't believe it either," Renwick said. "Here is this man who taught my sister years ago and he shows up on our doorstep with presents in hand to make my sister's Christmas unforgettable."

After bounding through the door, Bottjen hugged Lizzie and handed her several presents. Two years later, the family can't recall all that Bottjen brought with him.

"They were just little gifts … but he just blew us away," recalls Lizzie's mother, Capi Coon.

There was a can of soup, though.

"We couldn't figure this one out … I think it's an inside joke between Lizzie and Mr. Bottjen," Renwick said.

She was right. It was a silly, longstanding joke between the teacher and student. As a part of his class, Bottjen taught "life skills," including cooking. Over the years when Bottjen would see his former student or talk to her on the phone, he would ask her if she had been cooking anything. Maybe a batch of alligator soup? Dog soup? Or was it frog soup?

"She's a great listener. She laughs at all my jokes," Bottjen said.

Bottjen also remembers the other gifts he brought over that day -- two movies and a pair of pink bunny slippers. What he can't remember is exactly when or how he thought of surprising Lizzie and her family.

"But everybody ought to spread a little Christmas cheer," he said. "I just wanted to do something for her … it's a wonderful warm fuzzy."

For the Coon family, Bottjen captured the spirit of Christmas that day.

"I get emotional when I think about what he did for my sister," Renwick said. "He gave her something money can't buy -- he made her feel special and loved … To this day, when we say his name she lights up. Mr. Bottjen truly connected with Lizzie. He treated her with kindness and patience."

A five-and-dime doll from

the American Red Cross

The first Christmas gift Palmer resident Dace Boyd received was a little doll given to her by the American Red Cross in a refugee camp in Hanau, Germany, in the late 1940s.

Boyd, then a 4-year-old little girl, and her Latvian family were among thousands of refugees in camps in the American zone of Germany following World War II. Her father had been killed, and she, her mother, sister, grandparents and two aunts were waiting in the camp to find out which country they would be sent to.

The five adults and two children were housed in two rooms in a complex in the "displaced-persons' camp," and despite the difficulties of the time, there were signs of Christmas.

"We had a little tree," Boyd recalled. The small evergreen was decorated with a single clip-on candle and a few oranges -- "That was it."

But for the Latvian family, Christmas had always been a quiet affair. There had never been the exchanging of extravagant gifts -- maybe just a bag of nuts or a few oranges. And while Santa Claus might bring a few of these little things, children did not sit on his lap and make demands.

When Christmas arrived, an American Santa Claus came to the camp. Most likely he was a soldier dressed up in a white beard and red suit, and when it was suggested that Boyd go and sit on his lap to tell him what she wanted for Christmas, she had no interest.

"I refused to see him," she said.

Many other children, speaking many different languages, gathered in a line to get their turn to see Kris Kringle, including Boyd's older sister.

"But it scared me to pieces," Boyd recalls.

When the presents came out, however, the 4-year-old wasn't quite so shy. The American Red Cross had sent a shoebox-sized present for each boy and girl in the camp. Impressed even with the colored paper it was wrapped in, the little girl carefully opened the gift. Inside, she found a toothbrush, a washcloth and a small baby doll.

"It was wrapped in a little pink blanket," Boyd said, recalling the memory as if it had happened yesterday instead of 50 years ago.

It wasn't a fancy doll, but instead an inexpensive one with arms and legs that didn't move, the kind Boyd said could be bought at a five-and-dime store in those days.

"But I was just entranced by it," she said.

Boyd cherished that doll for years, and remembers bringing it with her when she and her family moved to America in 1950.

"I had it forever, probably until it finally fell apart," Boyd said. "That was my first experience with gift giving … I can still remember it so well."

Mittens for a friend

When I first thought of gathering people's stories for this Christmas article, I had my doubts that I would find the kind of small but meaningful experiences I had in mind. I didn't want dramatic, extraordinary tales. I wanted the memories people hold close to their hearts but tell with a kind of shyness because they don't think anyone else will see the importance.

How could I ever hope to stumble upon such stories?

But then I discussed the idea with my mother, Julie LeMay, and she not only encouraged me but also shared a memory of her own.

When my mom was a little girl, about five years old, she and my uncle and grandparents lived in the upstairs portion of a home in Buffalo, N.Y., that they rented from the family who lived downstairs. The landlords' oldest daughter, Norma, was about 13 at the time and my mom recalls the older girl always seemed kind and giving, even to her own younger siblings.

One day, my mom noticed the teen-ager was knitting something out of a lovely blue-and-white yarn.

"I asked her what she was making," my mom said, "and she said, 'Oh, just something for a friend.'"

For children, the month of December stretches on forever, and my mom said it seemed she watched the girl working on the gift for weeks and weeks. My mom admired the V pattern developing in the knitted mittens, and more importantly was in awe of this friend who would receive such a thoughtful and beautiful present, so unlike the pasted paper and glitter trinkets small children make during the holidays.

"How neat that she could make something like that for a friend," my mom recalled thinking.

Finally, Christmas Day arrived and Norma presented my mom with a small, wrapped gift. The 5-year-old girl tore away the paper to find the very blue-and-white mittens she had watched Norma knit.

"I just remember opening them up and being so surprised they were for me," my mom said. And then she remembered what Norma had said when she asked her that day what she was making -- just something for a friend. What better gift to a 5-year-old girl than to be considered a friend by the teen-age girl who lives downstairs?

"I can remember being so proud of them," my mom said. As she walked through the snow to school during the next weeks, my mom said she can remember holding her hands out in front of her and admiring the hand-knitted mittens.

"A friend made these for me," she would tell the other little girls she was walking with.

My special gifts

By AMY MENEREY

Packed away in labeled boxes in my crawlspace are chunky amateurish wooden objects -- a desert motif pencil holder featuring a coyote with handkerchief, a large, red open tool box with a dowel handle and a doll cradle decorated with a stenciled cat and hearts. Though no longer used, these items remain as a testament to one of my most heartfelt holidays.

It was 1990 and I had just moved back to Alaska -- and to my mother's home -- with my three children, then 5, 8 and 10 years old. I was 29 years old, suddenly single and broke, and Christmas was fast approaching. Distraught with the idea of coming up empty-handed, I approached my mother who always had one of her ready-made slogans available, "Make do with what you've got."

A couple days after lamenting to Mom, she took me into her basement workshop containing a belt sander, drill press and band saw. She quietly showed me how to operate each piece of machinery then pointed to several woodworking books on a shelf and a pile of wood scraps. "Here you go," she said, and I set to work on finding projects I could make that wouldn't seem too terribly "lame" to my kids.

I spent two solid weeks in that basement, barely leaving the saw long enough to use the restroom. Mom brought food down and kept the kids busy so they wouldn't see what I was doing.

Come Christmas I watched with trepidation as they unwrapped, worried that my clumsy wood projects would be met with "what the heck is this supposed to be?" They weren't. They were being incredibly tactful for children, I thought, but I was so happy they didn't wrinkle their noses at my rough-hewn wooden creations. Instead their bright "thank-yous" seemed honest -- maybe they understood more than I thought about our situation. I was surprised to discover they had gifts for me as well, equally odd-shaped packages were placed under the tree with "Mom" scrawled on them. My mother had been busy, I soon discovered when I opened them. A wooden shelf made from the cutout hand of one of my children was just one of the small personalized gifts they bestowed upon me. I never figured out when mom had time to work with them, but each of them had made gifts for me as well.

Years passed and my children got older and as they moved beyond toy cars and Barbie dolls, many old Christmas gifts went by the way of Salvation Army or yard sales -- but not my wood creations. And it wasn't because I insisted on keeping them, it was their choice. They remain packed away with special drawings of "Spot," Spiderman trading cards and a doll sporting purple hair, to be pulled out during later days for "remember when."

The doll cradle's pink padding is covered in dust, the tool box has chips along its edges and the pencil holder is barely together -- but my memory of their faces, my mother's simple and generous way of helping and the wonderful gifts my children gave me are as fresh as yesterday.