For her 41st birthday in 2014, Kristine Goodyear flew from her home in Colorado to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to celebrate with her grandmother, Kempie McKenna.
“Grams” gave Kristine a birthday card complete with a tiny polka dot party hat – complete with pink fluff and ribbon.
“It just tickled us, it was so sweet,” Goodyear recalls. “She always gave me fun, little gifts like that.”
From there, the great adventures of the little hat began. Carried in a conveniently small container, the hat made its way across North and South America, with Goodyear bringing it to Belize, Aruba, Mexico and beyond.
“If someone’s celebrating a birthday, I’ll take them with me and take a photo of them wearing a little hat on their head,” Goodyear says. “I have some friends who have worn it for probably seven years straight. It’s such a simple, stupid thing, but they all get the biggest kick out of it.”
Kristine Goodyear and her brother with their grandmother.
Courtesy of Kristina Goodyear
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Goodyear documents some of the hat’s adventures on Instagram at @tiny.hat.2014, showing some of her memorable moments on loved ones and even her two dogs.
However, as the hat was used so much over the years, the hairpin began to fall apart, she says. “It’s basically cardboard and lace,” she explains. “I was thinking of having a duplicate made so I could keep this one on a shelf somewhere – I don’t even know what I’d do if something happened to it!”
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Goodyear’s dog in a little hat.
Courtesy of Kristina Goodyear
Grams died in 2019, just short of her 90th birthday, but Goodyear, now 50, says: “She would think it’s great that it brings joy to people. She and I were very close and it will always remind me of her. Every time I pull it out, I tell the story of how it came to be. And then the people I know who I’ve told the story to, they tell other people, which also excites me. Because it’s a unique story: It’s like this little hat, only silly little birthday present, and now it’s over.”
“I value it more than all the money in the world,” Goodyear adds. – He is really special.
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Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education