The Loving Hands of Christmas

With rounded shoulders, she stooped low to scoop pecans from the leaf-covered ground of the orchard. My maternal grandmother, poor by the world’s standards, shelled pecans with arthritic, age spot speckled hands. She then placed them in dime-store containers and presented them as Christmas gifts. Pain-filled hands laboring to give.  My mother created sequined stockings with embroidered names for her grandchildren who raced each year to see them hanging from the mantle. In addition to delighting them with her sewing, Mama’s flour-dusted hands shaped angel biscuits each Christmas morning. Willing hands serving the family.   My dad’s hands restocked the…