I have an old shoebox I keep close at hand these days, and I pull it out when Quinn is self-entertaining for a minute or two, or when she is asleep and I’m not. Inside is a needle and thread, tiny jinglebells, gold glitter, a red felt stocking, and felt shapes that I drew and cut out. I am a terrible sewer: I usually just wear a coat with a button missing rather than repair it, and I couldn’t even tell you where my sewing kit IS most of the time. But I am determined to make Quinn a Christmas stocking, even if it turns out looking like a 6-year-old made it.

The stocking project began last November. That would be November of 2009, just a month before Quinn’s first Christmas. My 6-month-old baby ended up getting her Satsuma and toys in a pinned together stocking that year.

But this year, she can say Santa. She loves fingering the ornaments on our tree. She helped me and my sister build and decorate a Gingerbread house (another tradition built from scratch), and helped her dad hang up our Christmas lights. This year, she needs a stocking made by her mama.

My mom made mine and my sister’s Christmas stockings, and they’re lovely. She also made me a quilt when she was pregnant with me, made most of our Halloween costumes, and regularly hemmed our dresses before choir concerts. I don’t delude myself that I could actually create such things for Quinn, but the stocking is within my grasp. It will be gratifying to have a tangible memento of my love for her, something that will imprint itself on her memory in a way that all these nights of rocking, these days of cuddling and these years of devotion might somehow miss. Plus, it will jingle.