​So there’s this family I know, & they’re not normal. 

Allow me to explain. 

I’m scrolling through all the pictures of smiling faces & homemade cookies & well wishes on Christmas Day. Being as that I have no children to clean up after, I had a fairly relaxing day & could spend it mindlessly trolling the internet, looking at y’alls madness & mayhem. 

I got to a picture of a home I know, a home I’ve visited, a home that belongs to a family I love. 

In the picture was a modest tree, decorated with traditional colored lights & homemade ornaments, nothing flashy or showy about it. The tree sat on warm hardwood floors, polished to a shine. Nearby, perched on a low table, was a glass of milk & a plate of cookies. Other pictures revealed stockings hung on the chimney (with care, I imagine). The pictures themselves weren’t perfect, either, kinda blurry. Nothing was staged. But it was perfect in my eyes. 

I looked closer. And I saw something there. Or rather, a lack of something.

Underneath the tree were just a few presents. Maybe six. Maybe there were a few more that didn’t make it in the frame. I was puzzled. Houses with children are usually overrun with presents. Even here, Johnny & I are terrible & have all of ours under the big tree in the living room & the rest belonging to other people are scattered under the other trees. Piles of gifts. But not there. Not in that house with two little boys. 

I watched for Christmas morning pictures. There were several shots of them in their new matching pajamas on Christmas Eve, holding their bags of popcorn. They looked happy & excited, as expected. There were pictures of the family lounging, the boys posing with their nerf guns, & of the oldest son playing the guitar. There was talk of dinner being prepared. 

Today, me being me, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I messaged my friend of almost twenty years. 

“I’ve been meaning to commend you on Christmas. Looks like you didn’t go overboard on presents & everything looked so nice in the pictures.”

Her response was immediate: “Thanks. They each get three presents, because that’s how many Jesus received from the wise men. We want them to remember the real reason we celebrate & learn it’s not about the presents.” She went on to explain that her older child only got one big present, a guitar, & the other two were hand-me-downs for free. 

Make no mistake, this is not a family that can’t afford to get what their children want. This is a family that refuses to have ungrateful boys. Not to say they’re rolling in it, but that they know what’s important. 

Jena was raised by parents that taught her the value of hard work. It’s one of the things I always admired in her. We met in college, & it wasn’t long before we were hanging out together a few times a week. I met her family pretty quickly, as her house was more spacious than mine. And so inviting. Her mom is truly the hostess with the mostest. Her food was always delectable, the bedding so soft & warm, the conversation never stilted. They were generous with everything they had. As I got to know them better, I came to learn that they hadn’t always been the house of plenty. For many years after they married, it was lean. So Brenda penny pinched & made clothes & took in ironing & was just thrifty overall. They were living in a rented apartment in Florida while Al worked as a technical architect, gaining respect & experience over many long nights stretched across his drawing table. Brenda learned to cook from an Italian woman who lived downstairs & that gave her some sage advice: “you can never add too much cheese”.  They were so poor, Al once told me, that if at the end of the month, there was any money left at all after bills, if they could buy a coke & some popcorn to split, that was their party. 

As the years went by, they were blessed with two children. They were doing better. Jena was able to take riding lessons. Al began to work from home, visiting the office infrequently. They moved to North Carolina & built their own barn & paddocks & riding arena. After a few years, they felt the pull to move to the hills of Tennessee & they bought a log home in Gatlinburg. Al would mail or FedEx his plans to his office in Florida for skyscrapers to be built all over the world. He worked late into the night & rose early in the day to pad downstairs to his office, measuring precise dimensions for all sorts of structures. Once every few months, they’d load up the “bus” {a gargantuan RV} & take off for a few weeks to the plains, or Florida, or wherever Brenda pointed them. They took their golden labradors, Sadie & Sammie, along. 

Brenda & Al didn’t have a fancy wedding when they got married, so for their 25th anniversary Brenda sewed herself a beautiful sparkly gown & ordered a cake & had the wedding she’d dreamed of all those years before.

Jena never acted better than anybody, & she didn’t necessarily have the best of everything. But she did have a daddy that wanted her to have the stars as long as she would help reach for them. Now he’s one of those stars & we all wish we could stretch on our tiptoes & pluck him from the sky every now & then. But I know he would be thrilled with the way she’s raising her boys, & proud of her family on their little farm in Jefferson county. The Jeffcoats are love defined.