Good deeds of others become gifts for little girl

Most Utah families have a Christmas tree under which they'll pile presents. And on Christmas Day, anxiously rambunctious boys and girls of all ages will rustle around to see if Santa Claus brought them something good.

It won't happen quite that way at the Bountiful home of Nikki and Callahan Williams, where last year the couple first wrestled with what to give a 3-year-old who looks like a little princess but can no longer play with dolls or try on dress-up clothes or even laugh out loud.

Their daughter, Eliza, who will be 4 in March, was diagnosed in September 2007 with metachromatic leukodystrophy. The disease, caused by genetic defects in how myelin produces or metabolizes the enzyme arylsulfatase A, has now stolen Eliza's ability to walk, to talk, to see, to sit up or move her hands purposefully. She has lost her ability to control her head and neck. She can't swallow, so she eats through a tube. Even the grunts and squeals that had replaced speech are mostly lost now.

Last Christmas, they were still reeling with both the diagnosis and the severity of the changes taking place in the bright and busy little girl. It was shocking — and simply walking through the mall with its plentiful displays of holiday cheer or flipping pages in the newspaper and passing an advertising circular from a toy store was enough to make Nikki want to cry.

Nikki and Callahan decided that they ought to re-examine and even change their definition of "gift."

They decided to have a different type of tree and invite the people they love to be part of it. They didn't pile their presents under the tree last year, but rather hung them on it. And they didn't know what they'd find when they opened them — just that it would be very good, indeed.

You could call it Eliza's Good Deed Tree, if you wanted. For the gifts they opened on Christmas Day — and they'll get a new batch this year — are a written record of the nice things that their very extended circle of friends and family have done during the past year. What started as the simple act of writing down a service they'd performed during the year, sealing it in an envelope and hanging it on the tree has outgrown the size of the tree. There simply aren't enough branches.

Last year, one friend made a quilt and donated it to a local hospital, while another — a lawyer — handled a legal case for free. One child made a sibling's bed while another did the dishes without being asked.