I found nothing in the usual places. Would Mom hide her in the room I shared with my brother? As I dragged the straight chair across the wood floor, I wondered. Standing tall on tip toes, my fingers almost touched the knob above the closet door. Piling books on the chair, I climbed up again. This time, opening the cabinet that held extra blankets and family pictures, I found the shoe box.

Sliding the lid off, I spied her blond hair. Yes! Yes! My heart raced. I was going to get a doll for Christmas. There she was. Everything I wanted. I visited Emma in her box whenever I could, just looking at her. A week before Christmas, the house to myself, I positioned my makeshift ladder and expectantly opened the cabinet door. The shoe box was gone.

It seemed a long wait until Christmas morning when I spied the box under the tree, knowing that Emma was going to be mine forever. At the same time, I realized Emma was all I was getting. Still as I unwrapped her, my heart sang. Picking her up for the first time, now in a blue flowered dress with two other dresses lying beside her, I acted surprised to see her as I looked up at my mother. She didn't suspect.

The year I found my only present is the year I found Christmas, although at the time, I didn't know it was happening. Cured from gift hunting forever, I remember my mother's face that Christmas morning; love pouring from her eyes, excitedly watching her only daughter unwrap her present.

Years later, I learned how difficult a Christmas it was for my parents. Unable to find work, they were away from family and friends. My parents had relocated to California for my brother's health, and were still reeling from a fire that six months earlier destroyed most of our belongings when the woman in the adjoining duplex fell asleep smoking.

With no money for presents, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, my mother found the doll in a park - abandoned, dirty, ragged and falling apart. She took this thrown away toy home to lovingly transform, rebuild, and restore her shine, hand sewing doll clothes late into the night from my outgrown clothes.

My mother always says I didn't get anything else that Christmas. But, my mother is wrong. I got more than Emma. I got the love behind her. Today, I don't remember Emma's face or what happened to her, but I still remember the love I saw in my mother's face that morning. In the scheme of things, it's not the present you get or give but the love behind it. That was my mother's gift. Love.

(c) 2008 Nan S. Russell.  All Rights Reserved.

Author of Hitting Your Stride: Your Work, Your Way (Capital Books; January 2008). Host of "Work Matters with Nan Russell" weekly on webtalkradio.net. Nan Russell has spent over twenty years in management, most recently with QVC as a Vice President. Sign up to receive Nan's "Winning at Working" tips and insights at http://www.nanrussell.com.  Sign up to receive Nan's free monthly eColumn at www.intheschemeofthings.com