I have carried Christmas around in paper sacks and plastic sacks for forty years. This is the first bag I have ever written a letter about.
I have carried Christmas around in paper sacks and plastic sacks for forty years. This is the first bag I have ever written a letter about.
Six things I have noticed since a plastic sack gave out on a sidewalk in Poth, Texas, with two dozen tamales in it.
Peggy Dalton · Customer · Austin, Texas · 5 min read
Let me tell you who is talking before I tell you anything else. I am Peggy, I am 63, and I live in Austin, Texas, with my husband Frank. I am not a fashion person. I am a woman who, every December for forty years, has gone in and out of other people’s houses with her arms full, and has carried all of it in whatever was under the kitchen sink. The paper gift sack with the twine handles. The grocery sack, doubled, then tripled. I have left a trail of Christmas across most of Central Texas.
The ones I am writing about are the Christmas quilted totes from Iris and Nora, a small boutique here in Austin that has been quietly dressing women like us for a few years now. Mine is the Martha, red and white, with one big green Christmas tree on the front, a gold star on top of it, snowflakes all around and a row of little presents along the bottom. The other one I will tell you about is the Siobhan, plain cream with a pine wreath and two golden bells, which belongs to my sister Sue. There are fifty-seven in the collection, and I have looked at every one of them more than once.
Here is how I found them. Every year Sue and I drive down to Poth, south of San Antonio, the Saturday before Christmas, to pick up the tamales we ordered from a little tortilla place down there. Last year the line ran out the door and along the wall. I got my two dozen, in foil, in a plastic sack, and I got about four steps. The bottom went out of the sack, and my tamales went out across the sidewalk in front of God and everybody.
Mine, the next time we drove down to Poth. Foil bundles in the top, and nothing whatsoever on the sidewalk.
The woman ahead of me in line bent down before I did. She was about my age, her name turned out to be Ofelia, and she was carrying a red quilted bag with a Christmas tree on it. I took it for a church bazaar bag, something somebody’s talented aunt had made. Then I saw that the woman with her, her sister-in-law, had one just like it in cream, only with bells. Ofelia picked up my foil packages one at a time, dropped them in on top of her own and held the bag out to carry them to my car. It did not seem to trouble the bag at all. So I asked her, plainly.
Two piles
I have been carrying things to Christmas for forty years, and what there is to carry them in falls into two piles. There is the sack pile, the paper gift sacks and the plastic ones, which look like Christmas for about as long as it takes the handle to tear. And there is the good bag pile, the sensible canvas or the nice brown leather, which will hold anything and has not one thing about it that says it is December. So for forty years I have chosen between a bag with Christmas on it that would not last the afternoon, and a bag that would last and looked like I was going to the bank.
For forty years I chose between a sack that said Christmas and a bag that could carry it. Ofelia stood in a tamale line in Poth with both on her arm.
The day it came. I will tell you which day that was in a minute, and it does not reflect well on me.
I ordered mine on my phone in the car on the way home, while Sue drove and said nothing, loudly. Ordering a Christmas bag the Saturday before Christmas is a foolish thing to do, and it did not come until after the holiday, which is entirely my own fault and the reason I am telling you not to do what I did. So I started carrying it anyway. I have now taken a very large Christmas tree into the grocery store every week for most of a year. Frank brought it up in about March. Going by all those trips, it comes down to six things, and I will give them to you plainly.
Room for what you are actually carrying
The boutique says there is enough room for shopping, a book and your everyday things without it feeling bulky, and that is a fair way to put it. It stands about fifteen and three-quarter inches tall and four inches deep. A couple of wrapped presents go in it. So do the foil bundles from Poth, with my pocketbook on top of them. It is not a suitcase, and it does not sit on your hip like one.
I take presents to four houses every Christmas and I used to make two trips to the car at every one. Now I make one.
Linda V., Falls CityIt does not weigh anything before you fill it
The boutique calls it light to carry, and this I can speak to, because I have carried a good many bags that were not. Some of the good bags I have owned weighed more empty than what I was carrying in them. This one you would hardly know you had on your arm until you put something in it, and then what you feel is the something.
I had given up on big bags because they were so heavy. I carried this one around the whole Christmas market and did not think about it once.
Connie B., NixonTwo soft handles, in the hand or over the arm
There are two handles on top, soft ones, and they are as comfortable hanging from your hand as they are over your arm. That is how I carry it mostly, over the forearm, with the other hand free for the keys or the rail or a grandchild. Nothing is cutting into me, which is more than I can say for any twine handle I have ever met.
Home from Poth, on my kitchen table. It turns out they will sell you tamales in the spring, too, and nobody had ever told me.
The handles were what I noticed. They are soft, and I have not once wanted to put this down and shake out my fingers.
Beverly S., RungeAn open top, and I do not miss a zipper
I will be plain about this one so you do not find out later. It has an open top, with no zipper and nothing to fasten. If you need a bag that shuts, this is not your bag. For what I use it for, I have come to like it. In a checkout line, or on somebody’s porch with my arms full, I reach in and there it is. Nobody has ever had to stand and wait while I fought with this bag.
I drop things in and take things out, and that is all I have ever wanted a tote to do. I use it for the church bulletins and my lunch.
Pam K., JourdantonA real picture, for a grown woman
This is the part that made me ask. The picture is printed, so the detail is crisp, and then it is finished with quilting lines that give the whole bag a soft texture. That is why I took Ofelia’s for something somebody had made. The Martha is bold, I will grant you, and you will be seen coming. The Siobhan goes the other way, one neat wreath and two gold bells in the middle of all that clean cream, and it is what I would call understated, if I had ever been accused of that. There are fifty-seven to choose from, and I went back and forth for quite some time.
Sue, on her front porch, with the Siobhan. She stopped laughing at mine around February and went and bought her own. Sue starts her Christmas early.
Mine and Sue’s, side by side on my porch. I will let you guess which of us is the quiet one.
A lady stopped me outside the post office to ask where I got it. That has not happened to me over a handbag since about 1985.
Gail M., CharlotteThree widths, and a present you cannot get wrong
All of them come in three widths, thirteen and a half, fifteen or seventeen inches, with the same height and depth, so you just decide how much you like to carry. Mine is the fifteen. And I have never had an easier time buying for anyone, because there is no size to guess at. My daughter in Belton is getting the Dawn this Christmas, the light blue one with the penguin, because of my granddaughter. I have already ordered it. I learned that much.
I bought one for each of my daughters and one for the lady who does my hair. Three different pictures, and every one of them knew exactly which was hers.
Rhonda T., PawneeThe Martha and the Siobhan, against what used to be under my sink
You can go on carrying Christmas around in sacks, like I did. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
A paper sack with a twine handle
A plastic sack, doubled, then tripled
Handles that cut into your fingers
Gone by the second house
Tamales on the sidewalk
Room for shopping, a book and your everyday things
Light to carry, without feeling bulky
Two soft handles, for the hand or over the arm
A printed picture finished with quilting lines
Three widths, all the same height and depth
About the price
The thirteen and a half inch is $39.95, and it was $80.00. The fifteen is $42.95, and it was $86.00. The seventeen is $46.95, and it was $94.00. Every one of the fifty-seven is priced the same way, the Martha and the Siobhan included, so you are not paying extra for the picture you like. When I saw that I read the whole page twice looking for the catch. I have not found one. It came with free shipping and it looked like the picture.
Sue left hers on my kitchen chair for a week. The ribbon and the blank tag are for my daughter’s, which I am wrapping early, because I have learned.
I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these are for the season and the most popular designs go first. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I ordered mine the Saturday before Christmas and I would not advise it. If you want one on your arm for Christmas, do not do what I did.
And I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real women rather than robots. The same things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.
If you have spent your Decembers going from house to house with your arms full and a sack giving out, this is where I would start. Take a look before the design you want sells through, because once this stock is gone, it is gone. And if you are ever in a tamale line in Poth and you see a big red Christmas tree coming at you in the month of June, that is me, and I am not sorry.
Peggy
THE CHRISTMAS QUILTED TOTE COLLECTION
- 57 designs, from the red Martha to the cream Siobhan
- Printed picture, finished with quilting lines
- Two soft top handles, open top
- Light to carry, with room for your everyday things
- Three widths: 13.5, 15 or 17 inches
- Free shipping
Sale on now, half off. Once this stock is gone, it is gone.