The Christmas Dress

This family picture, taken when I was about 10, shows my sister, not me in a red Christmas dress. It is not the dress that I wrote about in the story but it is one of the many holiday dresses my mother made for my sisters and I. The red fabric, the pattern, the special ribbon for the bow, had all been chosen weeks before. My mother made all the special dresses for my sisters and me. That was when girls wore dresses to school and to church. Girls wore dresses except for playtime at home. For as long as I can remember, I can picture my mother smoothing the fabric out across the dining room table, cutting out the tissue paper patterns and carefully arranging them on the fabric like a puzzle so as to not waste any bit of cloth. Flipping one piece that way and another one this way until all the pieces were held down with shiny common pins. Then, carefully cutting with her Weiss sewing scissors that were never to be used for paper, she would begin cutting out each piece. The top and back bodice, the sleeves, the skirt, the neck facings and on it would go until each tissue patterned piece of fabric was piled in one spot and only the scraps were left. Then, all the scraps would be stacked and saved for even the smallest piece might be used to make a doll dress or an apron or a pot holder. And so it was, that my mother was now, only a few days before my school Christmas performance, sitting at her black and gold Singer Sewing machine, beginning my dress. But it wasn’t just my dress that needed to be completed, my sister was to have a red Christmas dress too. My mother often times would make identical dresses for my sister and I since we were almost the same size and only two years apart. This Christmas season, I thought my dress was going to be the prettiest ever, but I couldn’t imagine how my mother would ever be able to finish it in time. Two days before the performance, I burst into the house from school, hoping to find that my dress would be hanging up, ready to be hemmed but there was my mother, standing at the ironing board, pressing pieces of the bodice, the sleeves were not even sewn into the top of the dress yet. My eye widened as I said, “Mommy! How will my dress ever be done?” “Don’t worry, by tomorrow the skirt will be attached and your ribbons that tie in the back will be sewn in. When you get home from school, you can try it on and I will mark the hem.” She began to put some of the dress pieces aside and cleared the table so I could sit with my homework. I knew she would begin cooking supper soon and would have no time to continue sewing our dresses until later that night, after we were in bed. Before leaving for school the next morning I noticed that she had done just that. Now both my sister’s dress and mine hung half made, from the china closet door. They were beautiful. The bodices fit perfectly into the sleeves that were gathered at the bottom into cuffs waiting for buttons to be sewn on. Now, only the skirts needed to be stitched to the tops. I imagined how perfect my dress would be when I stood on stage to sing at the school performance. Still, all had to be finished by tomorrow! Again, I rushed home from school, hoping to find my dress, skirt attached to the bodice, hanging and waiting for me to try on. This time, my mother was sitting with a needle and thread, hand sewing a gathering stitch across the top of the long length of fabric that was to be the skirt. “Mommy, what’s wrong? Why are you not using your machine?” “My last sewing machine needle broke when it hit the pin that I had placed as a guide in your skirt. Daddy has the car and I can’t get a new needle until tomorrow.” Tears filled my eyes and I knew that I couldn’t speak. All I could think of was what I would wear tomorrow for my Christmas performance. My mother must have known what I was thinking as she said, “You have your pretty red dress from last year that still fits you. You’ll have to wear that. Your new dress will be done for Sunday school choir and of course for Christmas Day. It’s just that I can’t get a new needle until tomorrow.” It wasn’t her fault. She had worked so hard sewing our dresses but it was still a huge disappointment for me. I nodded and wiped my tears away. That night, when she tucked me in, she sang Silent Night and kissed my forehead. Then she whispered, ‘I can’t promise, but I will keep working on our dress by hand and I will see how far I get.’ Only when a daughter is grown with children of her own, does she fully understand a mother’s love. The love that tries to make all things right for her child. When I opened my eyes that next morning, my red Christmas dress was hanging on my closet door. The skirt was attached, the hem was done, the buttons were sewn in place. It was perfect. I jumped out of bed and raced downstairs. My mother was already in the kitchen making our breakfast. Her hair was all rumpled and she was still in her robe and slippers. She looked so tired but yet she was smiling. The dress was done and she knew that she had not disappointed her daughter. Although my mother made so many other special dresses for me over the years, I will never forget that red dress and how she worked so hard through the night to finish it, sewing so much of it by hand, one stitch at a time. Each stitch was sewn with love, a mother’s love for her daughter. My mother did make a red dress for me. She made many dresses for my sisters and me. Some details of this story are what I image to be true. Some details are quite accurate. But one thing that is absolute, was my mother’s love for her daughters. As the story was told, that was not changed.