A Very Special Christmas Story
Candy Puterbaugh
50plus Magazine
Years ago, Marnie McCammon’s tiny, detached garage became Santa’s workshop. There, she crafted gifts that were truly magical.
That was around 1993, and while Marnie feels that magic most of the time these days, decorating for all the holidays, it wasn’t always that way. Some 15 years before that Christmas, her life had shattered when a head-on collision killed her husband. It took years to pick up the pieces.
“I was widowed at 38 with five children, ages 7 to 17” she says. “My youngest son and I were badly hurt in the accident. I spent a year at home with a housekeeper, the
kids and I doing our best to care for each other. I didn’t have a job yet as I had just started real estate school.”
After a year she earned her real estate license, and the family continued to do their best, living life without dad.
Marnie’s oldest daughter, Jennifer, remembers: “We all reacted (and struggled) in our own ways. Losing Dad affected each of us in different ways. That first Christmas — the accident was in April — we all just went through the motions, numb.”
The following year, Marnie and the kids moved to a home across town. More moves came as the older kids left the nest. Wherever they went, “Dad’s chair” — an orange plaid recliner with gleaming wooden arms (very chic in the ‘70s) — came too.
Then in the early ‘90s, Marnie had a reckoning; she was floundering in life and decided something had to change. She put her career on hold to work on what seemed most important: herself. She dove into personal growth work, including a two-week recovery retreat out of state.
“I moved into what I called my ‘bitty train-car’ house,” Marnie says. “It was a tough time. I had many bills and wasn’t very well-off. I had stayed in real estate and did upholstery work, storing supplies in the garage. I’ve always been creative. When
the kids were little, I was a sewing fanatic!”
Now she was working to stitch her own life together.
“By 1993, the kids had grown up and were all coming home for Christmas,” she says. “I needed gifts for them. That old orange plaid recliner of my husband’s gave me an idea. I took it apart and started making gifts from it for my kids and grandkids.”
She made orange plaid teddy bears, a cribbage board from one wooden arm, and a footstool with an orange plaid cushion. She even rebuilt/reupholstered the chair itself.
That foggy Christmas morning, Marnie says, “I had turned on the lights in the garage. There was a sign on the door that said: Do Not Open Until December 25th. Inside, it was set up like an antique shop with the gifts arranged in a pretty way.”
Jennifer recalls that morning well. “We all followed her to the garage, shivering in the chill. Inside, nothing was wrapped, but my, the magic was brilliant! All of our hearts had finally found some peace, and we swooned over the gifts mama had made. Her work was professional quality, and that it came from Dad’s chair meant the world.”
Marnie says creativity always ran in her family. “My mother sewed all my clothes. My sister knitted little animals at Christmas. When I take our decor out each year, there are so many special things my sister made. Her three children are part of my family, my kids too.”
Marnie has learned from loss. “When the accident happened, it changed everything. I never tried to change my children. I wonder if what they went through made them such strong, solid people. Hardship can make you grow. I’m grateful for the path I’ve been on and where it brought me.”
Today, at 84, Marnie’s life is full, with her “sweetheart” of 40 years, three dogs, 10 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. As a real estate broker still, she enjoys helping seniors.
Jennifer credits the personal work she did. “She lived on very little for some time, but she was content. The outcome proved the expression: ‘pressed down, shaken up, and flowing over.’”
“She came out of that time a different person,” Jennifer continued. “She’d become connected and authentic. She was present, joyful, and truly living ‘well’.”
Like tinsel on a Christmas tree, Marnie’s sparkling personality draws others to her, as she once drew five shivering children into a little workshop, handing them parts of their dad’s chair and her heart — gifts made from memories and love.
“And while those gifts — and the memory of that Christmas — are precious to all of us to this day,” Jennifer says, “the work she did to become her best self was greatest gift of all. She is a joy.”