“Sure, just bring them over,” I heard Mom say.

It was two days before Christmas. I knew what the person on the other end had said because the same conversation happened each year before the holidays. Soon the doorbell rang and one of the city jewelers handed my mother a package bulging with several manila folders of pearls.

“I’ll be back to pick them up tomorrow,” he said and then he hurried off to his car.
During other weeks of the year, Mom took the bus downtown, filling her purse with the cultured pearls she picked up. She did this at least once each week. Each envelope also contained the selected clasp of silver or gold, and the specifications for the necklace. Each packet had a date indicating when the customer could pick up the completed necklace. Most were promised in a week and rush jobs cost the customer extra. Mom kept a tally sheet describing each job and the price she charged the jewelry store for her work. At the end of each month she would write out an invoice and drop it off for payment.

Before the holidays, and especially two days before Christmas, “rush jobs” were predictable. Mom would return from her trip to downtown and within a few hours the telephone would ring asking if she had the time to do just a few more.

Before I was born, my mother had worked in department stores. She still made fun of the desperate husbands who would come into the store on the afternoon of December 24th with no idea of what to purchase for their wife or lover.

Working from home, my Mom didn’t see the faces of the customers anymore. She would unload the satchel delivered to our door and begin work immediately at the jewelry table. The table faced one of the windows in my parents’ room. My father had constructed it of plywood to meet my mother’s specifications. There was a rim along each of the four sides to protect beads from rolling off and onto the floor. One at a time she would empty a packet, placing the beads in a row on the grooved hardwood sorting-board she used to organize the beads before stringing them. My Mom’s fingers and thumb would glide the thin wire-needle deftly through the hole in each pearl. Between each cultured gem, she formed a knot in the thread and slid it into place tightly. If the necklace broke no pearls would roll free and be lost.

Most days before Christmas, my mother sat at the jewelry table for five to seven hours each day. She would often be there when I got up in the morning and I would hear her return after she had tucked me into bed at night.

The jeweler would be back early the next morning, probably before his store would open for the day. Mom would hand him the pearls strung to the specified lengths and adorned with bejeweled clasps. He would graciously wish her a Merry Christmas and hand her a bottle of liqueur decorated with a bow.

It was Christmas Eve and too late for any more jobs except to bake cookies for Santa.