Hey, you’ll be able to name me “Half-Pint.”
Actually that has been my secret, fondest want ever since I used to be little and severely obsessive about one very particular episode of Little House on the Prairie. It was known as “Christmas at Plum Creek,” and it has taken me to get to this ripe previous age to comprehend that maybe I made that one particular episode my complete persona.
This was the primary season of Little Home on the Prairie, when the Ingalls clan had simply moved to Plum Creek and have been constructing their little life collectively at their cabin. A cabin, which, I’m reflecting as I go searching myself now, seems very very similar to my house: a really small log cabin with an enormous hearth and questionable wiring and a properly that likes to run dry each fall. If Pa Ingalls were here, he would giggle and roll his eyes and make a light joke about not lacking the water till the properly runs dry, and I might, as Half-Pint, giggle up at him adoringly. I knew my position then, and I do know my position now.
I yearned for Half-Pint standing, particularly at Christmas. I wished her bed room, her nightgowns, her braids. I wished her attire, her aprons, her bonnets — my God, her bonnets. I even wished her farm chores. I might have fortunately mucked out the barn if Pa or Ma Ingalls requested me. Particularly if it meant I acquired to have my very personal pony named Bunny as she had… a pony so pleasant that dreadful Nelly Oleson wished to purchase him from her. After all, Half-Pint was not having it, and when she fought that spoiled Nelly, I used to be on her aspect as I used to be all the time on her aspect.
This was the yr Half-Pint and her older sister, Mary (who notably was not given an cute nickname), have been making an attempt to determine what to get Ma and Pa for Christmas. The notion that kids would ever be extra frightened about what to get their mother and father for Christmas than their very own presents strikes me now as quaint and cute. That’s the pondering of a cynical lady, a grown one that is now extra of a mom than a daughter.
However as soon as upon a time, I used to be just a bit woman, too, a daughter of a mom I wished so desperately to please. And watching the 2 Ingalls daughters lie of their loft mattress of their bonnets and nightgowns, side-by-side as they fretted over find out how to purchase presents for Ma and Pa, I used to be that woman once more — sleeping beside my youthful cousin Katie when she got here to stick with us for the weeks forward of Christmas, the 2 of us whispering about our personal want lists and making an attempt to outdo one another with our deliberate presents for our mothers. Lies from me largely: I whispered that I used to be going to purchase her a crimson gown, a bicycle, 12 lipsticks. I might purchase her the fragrance from the business the place that lady kicked her leg up and a bottle of Spumante Bambino, the sparking white wine with the catchy tune.
I bear in mind it now, that feeling of desirous to be the particular person to provide my mother one thing nobody else had given her. Once I watched Half-Pint [spoiler alert] promote her beloved pony to Mr. Oleson in order that Nelly might declare him as her personal, I understood her. She did it so she might purchase Ma a brand new range. I may not have accomplished that as a result of I desperately wished a pony, identify TBD, however I felt it in my bones what it was to need for my mom. And what it was to by no means have the ability to afford what I wished.
The Ingalls, of their infinite homespun knowledge, felt no disgrace of their poverty. They kind of reveled in it. They have been even, dare I say, a bit smug about it. When Ma was promoting further eggs to purchase Pa a brand new shirt, when Mary was working after faculty and chores to assist an area lady so she might purchase Pa a brand new shirt, when Pa was repurposing previous wagon wheels to promote for presents — all of them beloved it. They bonded over it. Even little Carrie, a baby I all the time neglect existed, discovered a penny to purchase Pa a star for the highest of their Christmas tree, a gift he loved after snowshoeing out into the wilderness to shoot a large turkey for his or her feast.
Their Christmas celebration culminated with Pa enjoying the fiddle whereas the women danced in a circle with Ma. I wanted this present this yr — a lean yr for me and my youngsters and everybody else I do know. I’m going to do second-hand Christmas and faux that it’s simply because I’m cosplaying because the Ingalls household. I’m going to host a really earnest Christmas celebration at our cabin and attempt to power my household to bounce in a circle as my associate performs vacation favorites on his mandolin.
I’m going to make a Little Home on the Prairie Christmas occur. I’m going to change into Half-Pint if it kills me.
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