The story of my Christmas hutch

Toward the end of November, we went out for a spur-of-the-moment lunch with some friends after church. As we enjoyed a casual, relaxing meal at a local seafood place, we chatted about our plans for the upcoming holidays as well as other happenings in our lives. Our friends have their home for sale and are planning to downsize to a smaller place. They mentioned that they had sold many of their things but that they still had a few larger items to get rid of. One of these items was a handmade hutch.

I have always wanted a hutch. We have a pine corner cupboard (also handmade) in our dining area, but it's packed to the gills, and I've always wished for a hutch as well. My husband has the skill and talent (but not the time) to build one, so I had pretty much resigned myself to not having one. As Elizabeth George says in A Woman After God's Own Heart, "If God doesn't provide it, you didn't need it." When our friends mentioned that they only wanted $125 for the hutch, I became cautiously optimistic. That was certainly within our price range, and my husband was interested too. The deciding factor would be its dimensions. Our dining area is fairly small, and the portion of wall space we could allocate to a piece of furniture was limited. We said we would think and pray about it and perhaps go and look at the hutch.

Later that week, my friend called with the dimensions. We measured the intended space and found it perfect. We set up a time to go look at the hutch. It was exactly what we wanted! Not too big, not ornate -- very simply made and a near-perfect match for our corner cupboard. The extra-special blessing was when my friend said, "I want you to take it before Christmas. You will have so much fun decorating it for the holidays."

And indeed I did! I'm going to go back to the post where the photo of the hutch is, and add in some text as to what's on the shelves of the hutch. I plan to use the open shelves as a showcase for seasonal decorations I've collected and change them with the seasons. But in my heart it will always be my "Christmas hutch" -- a very special Christmas gift that God provided for me in 2006!