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Fortunetelling with Christmas stockings

That seems like an unusual combination, I know.

I was a parent filling my own children’s Christmas stockings, when I realized how important my early stockings had been for my future.

Who could have thought that a limp knee sock was part of my mother’s master plan … for my life’s path?

Graduating from high school at 16, Mom had no opportunity for further education. As a depression-era young woman on her own, she couldn’t contemplate college, or even secretarial school.

She wasn’t bitter about it. She worked at self-improvement all her life. But she vowed that I would not share the same fate.

I was 7 the first Christmas I found money in the toe of my stocking. When I pulled out the usual last item from the toe – a perfect navel orange – I thought I was at the end. “Are you sure you got everything?” she asked. “Better check again.”

Naturally, I wondered how would she know what Santa put in my stocking? But somewhere, deep down in my heart and tummy, I had begun to make the connection between Santa Claus and my mother.

The first hitch was that we didn’t have a chimney, so I didn’t understand how Santa could get in. The bigger giveaway was that the packages under the tree were “from Santa,” in my mother’s handwriting. And they began appearing early in Christmas week. And now she’s telling me there’s something else in the toe of my stocking? Hmmm.

I reached back in and felt some folded papery thing in the toe. Thinking it was a note, I pulled it out and was astonished. It was money, but something I had never seen before. A $100 bill! I know my eyes must have bulged. I said to Mom, “What do I do with this? This can’t be for me.”

She smiled and said, “It is for you, but not for now. It’s for college.” I was in the second grade, and I don’t think I even knew what college was.

We opened a savings account after Christmas, and the big bill was the first deposit. Because Mom continued her two jobs until I graduated, there was another one in the toe of my stocking every Christmas after that – until I did leave for college. There was no discussion about my wanting to go. It was never “if you go.” It was for “when you go.”

I do remember asking her if Santa gave $100 bills to everyone. She told me that he only gave them to little girls who needed them for college. Then she explained that some people could pay for more schooling, but others needed help from Santa.

It was years before I knew how she did it. She saved the change from her nightly waitressing tips. The small coins – the nickels, dimes and pennies – went into a ceramic apple on our stove. That little stash was my resource for milk, bread, or eggs if she wasn’t home … and the occasional emergency Milky Way.

Mom saved the quarters and half-dollars (which were in much greater circulation then) in a shoe box in her closet. Every month she’d roll the coins, then take the $5 or $10 roll to the bank to exchange for bills. At Christmas, she traded the small bills for the hundred.

The year after the first $100, I received a $50 bill for my birthday. It was folded the same way: in thirds, with the president’s face framed in the middle. But of course, it wasn’t in my stocking. It was in a gift box containing a sterling silver teaspoon.

“What is this?” I asked. She then explained another aspect of my life’s plan – dreams according to Mom.

“It’s the beginning of your silver set.” When I asked what that was, and at age 8, why I needed one, she explained, “When you grow up, and marry a college man, you will invite people to nice dinners. This is what you’ll need. They’re proper.”

And so it was decreed: I would to college, I would get married, and I would give dinner parties. Her vision was reinforced with every Christmas fork, birthday soup spoon, and Easter butter knife … until there was no doubt what my future held.

If I still didn’t know how I was going to get there and get proper, my mother did. College was the first step on the path she envisioned.

Looking back, my Christmas stockings contained crayons, a Milky Ways and toothbrushes – amidst plentiful hopes, dreams and aspirations.

To think that my mother fit all of that into a sagging navy knee sock, thumbtacked to our bookshelf.

Marcy O’Brien lives in Warren, Pa., with her husband, Richard, and Finian, their Maine Coon cat. Marcy can be reached at Moby.32@hotmail.com.

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