By Blair Smith, Staff Writer

On a cold winter night a few days before Christmas, a young girl sat and looked anxiously at a LeeWards catalog with a smile gleaming across her face. She was amazed at all of the beautiful things in it.

You may think this little girl was looking for toys or clothes she wanted for Christmas. But this was no toy catalog, this was a crafting catalog. Personal finance teacher Kathy Neal has been crafting since she was 5 years of age and has a history of crafting in her family.

“My great-grandma, both grandmas, my mama and at least one aunt on each side have crafted,” Neal explained.

The Neal family had another tradition – to love Christmas – and Neal now spreads that love of Christmas and crafting with her students.

“Grandma Hawthorne always had this catalog sitting around and especially at Christmas, I would go to her house and just sit there and look through the catalog and make a big long list of all the stuff I wanted,” Neal said. “I had paints and beaded projects I wanted, little quilting things, just everything – it was like a kid in a candy store, only it was no candy.”

Ever since, Neal has had an interest in crafting, and her family – especially Grandma Hawthorne – has been supportive of her.

“She was excited that I was getting into crafts like she was,” Neal said.

Neal started with jewelry, then quilting, then was sewing by the age of 13 or 14. She even started to make her own clothes: “For many years I designed and made at least 50 percent of my wardrobe,” Neal said.

As Neal got older, she decided to step out of the ordinary world of crafting and decided to spice things up a bit. She explored the art of Kumihimo, a Japanese form of braiding; card weaving and lucet braiding.

“I love to find, learn and make obscure, old-world crafts,” Neal said.

Still, her traditional Christmas crafts always come back to her. Her family always loved the holiday: “I love Christmas! It’s my favorite time of the year, and that’s a family tradition (to love Christmas) because it’s Jesus’ birthday!”

Ever since her mother made the kids ornaments for every Christmas, Neal has wanted to carry on that tradition herself. They started working on a craft together one year when Neal had foot surgery and her mother was helping care for her – not sitting at home crafting like she normally would be.

“Mama was worried because she didn’t have ornaments for all of us,” Neal explained. “I had all of Daddy’s clothes and I was going to make quilts out of them for everybody, and so I said, ‘Mama, why don’t you make this angel that I made out of Daddy’s clothes?’ ”

It was a special moment for Neal, who calls herself a “Mama and Daddy’s girl. Even though I’m grown up and on my own, I am totally attached.”

In 2007, Neal’s father passed away from a heart condition.

“I love my daddy so much that I would have taken his place if I could have,” Neal said with tears in her eyes. “But it wasn’t meant to be. And that’s good, because then I wouldn’t have met all of y’all.”

Now, when Neal talks about making Christmas ornaments for her family, she means both relatives and students. Since she began teaching, she has always been close to her students.

“Not being able to have kids has made me become so attached with y’all,” Neal said. “I appreciate the heck out of y’all letting me borrow you for whatever time I get to have you each day because you fulfill a need in me to care for children.”

Neal first started making stained-glass window cookies for her students, because she loved how they looked.

“You take a sugar cookie and with a small cookie cutter, you cut out the middle of it and you take any hard candy you want and bake it in the oven and it looks like a little stained-glass window,” Neal explained. “It was really cool! That year I did the stained-glass cookies I was very proud of myself because that had a personal touch.”

The next year, Neal decided to make initial ornaments so they could be more personal for all of “her” kids. She makes them from beads that represent the birthstone of each student and by what grade the student is in.

“When I started doing the initials, I just couldn’t stop!” she said. “As I get older it takes me longer to do them because I move slower,” she added with a laugh. “I used to be able to make one in about three minutes, but now it takes me around 15 minutes for each one.”

It takes Neal about 24 hours, in eight-hour increments, to make the initial ornaments. Sometimes she barely sleeps the night before the she distributes the ornaments to her students.

“Sometimes I fall asleep still making them, or have 15 minutes of sleep. But to hear some of my students tell me they still have their initial ornaments and how special it is, it makes every minute spent worth it,” she explained. “I hope it’s something special that they will keep, like I do with the ornaments that people gave me.”

By making the ornaments for her students, Neal wants them to feel like she does every year when she is putting up her Christmas tree.

“When I hang my ornaments that Mama made me on the tree each year, sometimes I get goosebumps, like right now talking about it,” Neal said, “and sometimes I just smile because I remember the year they gave it to me. Sometimes I cry because I remember that that Christmas, Daddy was still here and it was extra special, or maybe it was the one I got the year that was his last Christmas. A lot of things go through my head when I’m putting up my tree, but there’s nothing I enjoy more than just touching those ornaments and having it remind me of where it came from.”

Sophomore Blair Smith can be reached at smithas0621@daretolearn.org.