The Christmas Box

“Ah! How good it feels the hand of an old friend.”
― Mary Engelbreit

My favorite day of the Christmas season is when it arrives. Some years it has come before Christmas. Most years it comes a few days after. Only once in twenty years did it not come at all and I knew there was something wrong.
I can't remember how it started - this soulful exchange of boxes between Ann and me - filled with treasures.

The boxes' abundance or lack there of from year to year has reflected our respective financial states - some years the box brims. Other years it doesn't - but no matter - it's the friendship contained in it that counts. A long distance friendship that has endured over twenty years.
A friendship that began on a walk with strollers and bikes with training wheels - two young mothers colliding at the end of a driveway with four children between us -
Fast friends - instant soul mates - each sharing a love of the illustrator Mary Engelbreit, a hearty laugh, and deeply honest conversation.

Ann transformed our neighborhood with her enormous mid-western heart and joviality. Her two youngest children the same ages as mine - played dress up together and went to the same pre-school. They learned how to swim in my mother's pool. We trick or treated together, tugging a wagon behind us for tired little legs- and a six pack of beer. Ann organized neighborhood gatherings, dinners out, and lots of afternoon play dates.

Then, Ann moved with her family to Texas via St. Louis, her home town. As it happened, I was going to be in St. Louis for a conference that very summer, and so after she moved, I met up with her there - where she introduced me to the Mary Engelbreit store! I believe the box exchange began with Mary Engelbreit goodies - calendars, tea cups, ornaments, stationary - some years we even gave each other the same things!

Each Christmas, for over twenty years - UPS drivers in California and Texas have carried a box of treasures to Ann's and my front doors - and each Christmas, I wait until I'm completely alone - and then begin the joyous task of opening the box. Individually wrapped gifts - uncanny in their aptness - gifts that speak of the depth of understanding between us belying the long distance nature of our friendship. With each unwrapped treasure, a sigh - a smile - a tear - a giggle - a pause - a gasp - a memory.

Seven years after we said farewell in St. Louis, Ann and I met up again in Italy for a ten day excursion through Tuscany. The last time I laid eyes on her was in an airport in Rome seven years ago. Hopefully we will see each other again this summer. The T-towel I sent in her box this year bore the map of California. A note in her box to me indicated that this just might be the summer. It seems we have a pattern of seeing each other every seven years. We don't email. We don't facebook. We talk on the phone once or twice a year. But through the long periods of separation - and the ups and downs of our lives - the one constant connection has been our Christmas box exchange.

It seems we both outgrew Mary Engelbreit decor - or simply exhausted the inventory of potential Mary Engelbreit chachkies - but the box has always had a sense of magic about it. I think it is because it represents a commitment and faithfulness between two steadfast friends with an almost mystical - heart to heart connection. The Christmas box is a sacred tradition. It is a promise. It is a box filled with love.
It is a joyous celebration of the mystery of life. Each Christmas, as my hand digs into the bubble wrap and paper, it pulls out a wrapped package, big or small, that I know was touched by the hand of an old friend. And that is the greatest treasure of all.