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Times Remembered

A Christmas wrapped in tradition

It isn't what's in the package that connects a daughter and her mother. It's what's on it.

By MAUREEN STILWELL
Published December 20, 2005

[Times photos: William Dunkley]

For more than 20 years, Maureen Stilwell of Largo and her mother shared a special Christmas custom, using the same piece of wrapping paper when exchanging gifts. Now that her mother has passed away, Stilwell plans to keep the paper as a remembrance.

	Maureen Stilwell

The legend of the wrapping paper began in 1973 when I worked at a Montessori preschool in New Jersey. As the secretary, I was treated very nicely by the affluent parents of the children who attended the school. At Christmas, the staff received gifts from these families. That year, I received a gift wrapped in striking silver paper, topped with a brass tone angel. It was a lovely package. I was so impressed with the wrapping paper that a few days later I used it to wrap a gift for my mother. My mother must have been impressed too because, unbeknownst to me, she gave me a gift in the same wrapping paper the next Christmas.

And so was born a tradition that was to span 23 years. Each year around November, I would begin to wonder, "Who has the paper . . ." My husband would get out the Christmas pictures from the previous year to see who was presenting whom with the paper.

As the youngest in the family and the only daughter, I relished the specialness of our mother-daughter relationship. My grown children and extended family became aware of "the paper" exchange, which made it a popular holiday topic. Once when I met my future daughter-in-law, she arrived at our house to see me ironing the paper, which had gotten wrinkled from the previous year's gift. I'm sure she thought she was marrying into a family of cheapskates.

In September 1996 the strain of an 88-year-old's heart gave out, and we lost Nan on Labor Day. The holidays that year were heavy with memories; I cried through most of them. Among the decisions to be made was what would become of the paper.

I have two daughters-in-law, no daughters, and I could not favor one over the other, nor could I burden them with the emotion of a 23-year exchange between a mother and her daughter. So to date, the paper sits among my Christmas memorabilia, too special to throw out or pass along.

I have come to the peaceful conclusion that perhaps the specialness that Mom and I shared doesn't have to be given away to live on. The paper weaved a bond of love and joy between us and may deserve retirement and a place of honor on my closet shelf.

Through this I have learned that we never know when or where a tradition will be born and that the joy and love we shared became much more important than the gifts wrapped in the aged and permanently crinkled paper.

And so, just as Nan's spirit lives on, so too does the legend of the paper. One of my sons is convinced Nan is in the wind and when it blows, it is Nan telling us to shape up.

The legend of the paper can find its own peace knowing that although Nan is gone, she still lives within us every day - whether it is in the Christmas wrapping or the wind. And who among us can want to be remembered any more specially?

- Maureen Stilwell is the mother of three grown sons and four grandsons and is the younger sister to two older brothers. She used to say she was a prisoner in the men's locker room. She has been a local Realtor for 25 years.

[Last modified December 16, 2005, 12:40:06]