Laurie's Story
Christmas has always been a very special time for me, I love decorating for the holidays, baking delicious treats, designing outdoor cedar, fir and pine pots and visiting with family. I believe my love of Christmas comes from my many memories of special family times as I was growing up as a child. My parents always made Christmas magical, even though we were a family of six, four children with myself being the only girl. My parents were married very young so as a young family they did not have a lot of money but always got us magical gifts. The gift I most remember from my Mom and Dad was a handmade kitchen that my dad made for me. He built me a stove and a fridge from wood, which was all hand painted and purchased accessories to go with it, so I could pretend to cook and bake, just like my mother always did for us as a family. My dad made many different handmade gifts over time, when I was married and had a daughter, he built us a beautiful cradle for her as an infant, with my Mom sewing all the bedding for it, it was absolutely gorgeous. As my daughter grew, he built a smaller doll cradle for her to play with, and when we had a son he built little wooden pull toys for them to play with. My dad sadly passed away very close to Christmas in December 2021 and in thinking about Christmas this year, it is very comforting to remember all the special ways in which we were shown love as children and to realize how lucky we were to have those special handmade gifts.