Let’s set the scene. It’s December, 1946, and it’s beginning to look a lot like a disappointing Christmas at the Fort Hamilton, NY military base. No Christmas tree, no decorations for eight-year-old Mom waiting to disembark with her two sisters and mother for Heidelberg, Germany where they will join their father, then serving as an Army intelligence officer. The only gift? A pair of mittens for each girl handknit by their grandmother, wrapped and waiting on the bedstand Christmas morning. The disappointment of a handknit gift is what Mom decides to share on our knitting podcast. We can’t make this up.

"I have wished many times over the years that I had asked our mother more questions when she was still with us. Eight-year-old me was disappointed in such a sparse Christmas, but I now realize how difficult that time was for our mother, and I am grateful for what she managed to do under the circumstances. I wish I could tell her that.”

Janet Lewis Klein, "My Strangest Christmas"

​Thankfully, it does not end there. Her older sister didn’t remember the mittens, but she did remember the stocking filled with candy hanging at the end of the bed. Which version is more true? Perhaps the Christmas miracle here is that both are true, and it takes a family to reconstruct the whole story. But that little detail changed the story for Mom and what it meant to her. As she says, “Our memories are unreliable. Thank heavens we grow up.” This is why we need each other, and why we share these memories and mis-rememberings.

We hope you find some time over the holiday season to share some memories with family too, and maybe make some new ones. And Mom, we are grateful for all you have given us over the years, but it was a C and H Pure Cane Sugar ad, not Hawaiian Punch.

Check out the Show Notes at www.bootieandbossy.com