48 Baskets

It was a promise she had to keep

- Katie Minter Jones

“YOU PROMISED them we would make how many Easter baskets?” my husband, Clay, asked.

I slid down in my chair. “Forty-eight,” I said. Even as I repeated it to him, I heard how impossible that number sounded.

“Why did you promise something we can’t possibly deliver?” His question hit hard. I wanted to explain that it wasn’t my idea. When I’d made more hair bows than my daughter needed, I called the local children’s home to see if Clay could drop off the extras there.

“That would be nice,” the social worker had said. “You know what the kids would really love? Easter baskets!”

Easter baskets? Before I’d thought it through, I agreed to make them.

What had I gotten us into? Where would we find the money—let alone the time—to assemble 48 baskets?

With two sons starting college and a daughter at home, we couldn’t afford it. Easter was two weeks away! And yet this was for the children’s home. As the social worker had said, most of these kids had never had their own Easter baskets. I knew what that was like.