Barbara Bush made Christmas stockings for all the great-grandchildren she wouldn't get to meet

Christmas time is all about spending time with your family and making memories (and the presents, of course). If you're a little older now, you probably have fond memories of eating Christmas dinner or opening presents on Christmas morning with your extended family—including your grandparents. If you're especially lucky, you probably also got to spend some time with your great-grandparents. And that's a different kind of pampering altogether. Sure, your grandparents know how to spoil you, but your great-grandparents are probably professionals. Well, it appears that former first lady Barbara Bush thought carefully about the time she got to spend with her great-grandkids and decided to make sure she left every last one of them something to remember her by, even if she didn't get to personally make memories with them. According to PEOPLE Magazine, she sewed Christmas stockings for all the great-grandchildren she knew she wouldn't live long enough to meet. How thoughtful!

Former first daughter Jenna Bush Hager explained that her grandmother never got to meet her youngest great-grandson three-month-old, Hal. However, he was on her mind anyway. Reportedly, before she passed away in April 2018, she had embroidered stockings to be “reserves” for the Bush children who grew up long after she had left them. Hager revealed what a surprise it was to find out about the stockings when she returned to co-host the Today Show after taking her maternity leave.

Hager found out she was expecting following a tumultuous year of personal loss in the family. "I found out I was pregnant the week after my grandfather died," she stated. "And I lost my three living grandparents in one year." Former President George H. W. Bush passed away about six months after his wife Barbara, in November 2018. In addition to this, Hager's maternal grandmother, Jenna Welch, died in May last year. Therefore, her son Hal is the first Bush baby who won't get to meet these important figures from Hager's childhood.

"[Hal is] the first baby that won’t get to meet these people that were such an important part of my life," the Today Show host said. "But, I will say, and this is such a beautiful thing — my grandmother, my dad’s mom, needlepointed a lot of stockings, reserves, for great-grandchildren that would be after she died." Hager, of course, knew that Bush was sewing stockings for the Bush children, but she didn't know if there would be one for Hal. However, she was pleasantly surprised to learn that there was, in fact, a stocking made especially for him. The former First Daughter explained, "She tirelessly worked. And so my aunt just emailed me on Friday and said, ‘What address should I send Hal’s stocking to?'"

Expressing her gratitude, she continued, "What a beautiful blessing and what a beautiful thing that she did so that all three of my kids will have made. [Hal] will never meet her, but they’re so ingrained, I mean, literally in this case, in the fabric of our family — that he’ll have a stocking that his great-grandmother sewed." She told PEOPLE Magazine, "I know that through my grandparents' letters and their stories and the way that they raised us, he’ll get to know them." Does Hager plan to sew stockings for great-grandkids too? She joked, "Maybe I’ll go on Amazon and buy one before I die." Though Hal may never meet the former first lady, he will definitely feel her love, care, and affection.