The Green Bathrobe

This should really be a Christmas blog, but this story is very much on my mind, so I think that means someone out there needs for me to share it.

When I was in middle school (6th to 8th grade), my mom encouraged us kids to go through the Sears and Montgomery Ward and JC Penney catalogs and mark the pages of things we would like for Christmas.

You never knew what you marked that you might get, and you never got everything, but it was my Mom's way of making sure that the little money she and Daddy had for presents went to gifts that made her kids happy.

So, the Christmas I was 13, and in the 8th grade, one of the things I marked in the Montgomery Ward catalog was a beautiful baby blue bathrobe.  It was fleece, and had a zipper closure, and it had some embroidered flowers on either side of the zipper.  I could just imagine how cozy it would be in the New Jersey winters.

We always opened our presents on Christmas Eve, after Christmas Eve mass.  Mom and Dad, and my grandmother, and great aunt, and my mom's brother and sisters (no one but Mom married) would all be there for the opening of the gifts.

As I was opening my presents, there was a large box, and I was certain it was the baby blue bathrobe I wanted.   I opened the box excitedly, and inside was a hideous fluorescent green bathrobe, kind of like a fake fur texture, with a button closure and a belt.   My heart sunk.  I looked up, and there was my Mom, looking at me with excitement shining on her face.  "It's just the one you wanted, right?"

There was no way I could throw cold water on her excitement, so I lied.  "Yes, Mommy, it is exactly the one I wanted."  And I proceeded to take it out of the box and put it on over my clothes to reinforce how much I loved it.

In retrospect, it was a perfectly legitimate mistake for Mom to make.   I have always loved psychedelic colors.  Right now as I type I am wearing a fluorescent pink shirt and a neon blue skirt.  So to have picked that wild bathrobe fit my style.   But at thirteen, I wanted to try on being less out there, and more girly.

Well, that bathrobe sure was warm and cozy anyway.   And, my life took unexpected turns, and by the Christmas I was sixteen, I was a young mother.   The green bathrobe stayed with me.   At a point in time, the belt got lost, and so I used an old pair of panty hose for a belt.  

And then I lived in an apartment that only had a small electric heater in the bathroom, and one time the robe got too close to it so it had a brown scorched patch.

But whenever I put that bathrobe on, I knew my mother loved me, because I could always see in my mind's eye how happy she was that she thought she was making my dreams come true that Christmas.

The curtain fell and time passed, and at twenty-seven, I married my husband.  I still had the green bathrobe.  You see, when you are struggling to make ends meet, and you have a child to buy clothes for, a new bathrobe is just never going to make it to the top of your priorities list for purchase.

So, when my new husband saw the green bathrobe, I had to tell him the story.  And eventually, I got a new bathrobe.  But I kept the green bathrobe, and now, my daughter has it.

Because the green bathrobe wasn't about whether a garment was pretty or ugly.  Or whether a present is just want you wanted or something entirely different.

The green bathrobe is about love.  And about recognizing that when someone does something for you out of profound love, it is always beautiful, and should always be treasured.

So, when someone you love gives you a gift, just see the love.   The rest of it doesn't really matter at all.