AB_L5_080609_eclass101

AB_L5_080609_eclass101.mp3
Christmas Shopping
Today was Sunday, the last day of the big Down East Holiday Show. My mom and I rented a booth at the show for the weekend to sell our crafts. I paint and make funny little toys called lumps. My mom is a doll maker. She's been making dolls ever since I can remember.
Raggedy Ann was my first mom-made doll. She had loopy red yarn hair, a white eyelet apron over a blue and white checked dress, red and white striped legs, and an embroidered heart on her chest that read "I love you." Over the years, Mom made me baby dolls with jointed arms and legs, spool dolls with round beads for heads, alien looking dolls with long, oval faces, and teddy bears with buttons for eyes. In junior high, she helped me make a doll of my own for a class project. Thor had curly red hair, a Viking hat complete with horns, and a shield covered in aluminum foil. I believe I got an A. She made so many dolls that, eventually, she didn't have to use a pattern for the bodies or the clothes. She started to invent her own.
Today, my mom was selling dolls found nowhere else but in her brain and her sewing room. She had mermaids with dyed sheep's wool for hair and jeweled buttons sewn to their fingers as rings. She had snow-people made from old chenille bedspreads with feather boas on the edges of their skirts. She even had raggedies, but not just the old, traditional raggedies like the one I had as a kid. These definitely came from my mom with their pink hair, wire rimmed glasses, and 60s flower-child clothes.
About halfway through the day, a little girl of about eight buzzed into our booth and grabbed a raggedy off the shelf. She closed her eyes as she hugged the doll, and she rocked it back and forth. Her mother came in after her.
"This one, Mommy," she said. She stroked the pink hair.
"Are you sure?" her mother asked.
The little girl nodded, her eyes big and round.
This reaction is what we all hope for when we Christmas shop for our loved ones.
"This one."
Would you rather receive a gift that you expect or one that is a surprise? Why?