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This is the story of the greatest Christmas present I never got.
It begins in 1983, when toy company Coleco released an adorable new doll called the Cabbage Patch Kid. On the butt of each Cabbage Patch doll was printed the signature of originator Xavier Roberts, and included in each box was an adoption certificate with the doll's birthdate and a name.
Caleco, though, underestimated the fervor with which American children would clasp the Cabbage Patch Kid to their collective bosoms and didn't manufacture enough dolls to meet the considerable demand.
In 1983, however, I was a New Orleans elementary student, blissfully unaware of the lengths to which parents were resorting. I knew, only, that I wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid for Christmas, desperately, more than I wanted the Earth to continue in its orbit.
But I might as well have been wishing for a pet unicorn.
Hope, however, springs eternal in a 7-year-old heart, and I snuck out of my room late Christmas Eve and carefully peeked through the banister, hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa Claus putting a gift of exactly the right size under the tree.
What I saw, instead, was my dad assembling my brother's present from "Santa."
Well, so much for St. Nick, I thought, but all's not lost.
I still came down that Christmas morning believing I might end the day a proud adoptive parent.
When I got to my biggest present, though, my heart sunk. It was shaped all wrong.
My dad watched me expectantly as I opened it.
The doll inside looked a bit like a Cabbage Patch Kid. She had brown yarn hair, and dimples in her cheeks. But she wasn't as soft, and the fabric of her skin was a darker color than her wan face. There was no adoption certificate in the box. For final confirmation, I turned her over and checked the butt. No signature.
I started crying, then, and I've never seen my dad look so confused.
"It's the same doll," he said.
I shook my head.
Ashamed but still clinging to pretense, I took the doll outside to play with the neighbors. One girl cradled a Cabbage Patch Kid with blond braids.
"Is that a real Cabbage Patch Kid?" she asked, pointing at my doll, whose arms were stiff at her side.
"Yes," I squeaked.
I brought the doll back inside and put it down in my room. A few days later, my dad asked why I never played with it. I couldn't tell him. I knew he couldn't understand.
If only we were richer, I thought. If only we weren't so weird and foreign …
Then one February morning, my dad came into my room at an ungodly early hour, unable to even wait for me to wake up. He sat on the edge of my bed, holding something behind him.
"They got more in the store," he said, handing me the box.
I gasped.
Inside was the most beautiful Cabbage Patch Kid I had ever seen, a little girl with red pigtails, green eyes and a frilly green-and-white dress.
I still remember the feeling of that doll in my arms, the fulfillment of my heart's deepest desire.
Tell me a gift is a material thing, and I'll agree that's true, but right then, it felt a lot more like love.
I'll remember that present, always, not for the money spent but for that feeling, the feeling of someone seeing straight into your heart. I didn't get what I wanted that Christmas, but it still was my greatest gift, that understanding.
My hope for us all is that this year and always, when giving or receiving, we see and are seen that same way, with those same eyes of love.
For it is then that we find the greatest gifts of all.