It was Christmas morning. All of the presents had been ever so carefully torn open by me and my three siblings. The adults had drifted into the kitchen for more coffee and Grandma’s famous breakfast. And I was the last one left in the parlor room—you know, the one that wasn’t the TV room but had couches, too.

I must have been 10 or 11 years old… that in-between age when I was just barely done playing with dolls.
That Christmas, Grandpa had given me a fur coat—an oversized grannie look from the decade before me—and I was mortified. Everyone was so excited for me to get it. Grandpa’s eyes lit up. But my stomach sank straight to the floor. I buried the feeling, careful not to ruin the moment for everyone else.

But his eyes lit up again in this next moment, too.

The magic of my Grandma’s perfectly decorated Christmas tree filled the room, sparkling not just on the branches but behind my Grandpa’s eyes. It was exactly the feeling a child should have at Christmastime—the kind Ralphie describes in A Christmas Story when he opens his Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle… when all is right with the world.

And in that moment, all was right with the world.

Grandpa met me at the tree.

“What’s that there?” he asked, pointing to a small box tucked inside the branches. Did we miss a gift?
It was a tiny jewelry box.

When I looked back at him, he smiled—nudging me to take the box, scribbled with my name. Inside was an opal ring—my birth stone.

I still have that ring today, one of the last gifts we shared with him before cancer took him from us. And now, all these years later, it fits my finger as if it was meant to be here all along.

Just as I will always have him with me, too—right where he belongs, in my most precious Christmas memories. Funny fur coat and all.

Jen Bailey

Hi! I’m Jennifer Bailey and I partner with entrepreneurs who have massive ideas that could change the world. Most marketing is meaningless. Filled with empty promises, its only job is to bring in new traffic, new leads, and new customers. But I’ve drawn a line in the sand, and I’ve learned that marketing can do so much more than reach business goals and build profit. My methods give businesses the fire and soul they need to reach the right people, set the groundwork for sustainable relationships, and offer true value to the people on both the giving and receiving ends of marketing.

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