I have two Christmas stockings:
My mother-in-law made the one of the left for me somewhere around the turn of the century; my sainted mother made the one on the right in the middle 1980s, when we were living in the trailer park and she came across some iron-on letters somewhere.
The one on the right hung with similar stockings with my mother and brother on the wall by the bedrooms in the house down the gravel road we lived on during our high school years; the one on the left hangs by the chimney at Nogglestead with similar stockings for my wife and children.
But I point out to my children that the difference in their appearance does not reflect a difference in the love with which they were made. Their grandmothers had differing skill levels at crafts and different gifts. So while my mother-in-law (for whom I really need a standing adjective–perhaps I will try “wonderful”) can make beautiful crafts with felt, glue, and spangles, she probably has not singlehandedly finished a basement or remodeled a bathroom.
It would be nice if the children could learn the lesson from this, that people have different talents and skill levels, and that’s okay. It’s a lesson many storybooks from their earlier years tried to convey, but my children are boys, so each must be the best at everything, or at least better than his brother. Which will only succeed ultimately in making one of them sadder than the other in each assumed competition.
