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It’s been said that as we get older, the items on our Christmas lists come to include things that cannot be purchased in a store, as our love and appreciation for the people in our lives forces us to re-examine the things we’d like to see wrapped up under the tree on Christmas morning, with most of us hoping to find people instead of presents. Two young New Carlisle girls have already grasped this lesson, as their mother is stationed in Georgia for the Army, prompting them to ask Santa for just one present this year—that they be able to spend Christmas with their mom.

Thanks to some last-minute planning and coordination with the staff at the girls’ schools, Katie Taylor was able to fulfill her daughters’ Christmas wishes by surprising them in their respective classrooms this past Friday morning.

Taylor is a 2005 graduate of Tecumseh High School who joined the Army two years ago as a means in which to provide her daughters with a secure future. She got to see the girls at Thanksgiving, but before that, it had been almost a year since they had all laid eyes on one another in-person. Although they communicate regularly through Face Time, Taylor said it has been rough for the girls to be away from her, with her old daughter Mackenzie especially struggling with the separation.

Unless you’ve been living under a boulder this past week, you’ve likely seen the emotional video on social media of Taylor surprising Mackenzie in her first grade classroom at Park Layne Elementary last Friday, as it has received more than 20,000 views through different platforms. The video was the result of the coordinated efforts by Mackenzie’s teacher Julianne Howell and Park Layne Principal Karyl Strader, who videotaped the touching reunion on her iPad. Taylor said that Howell and Strader made it possible for her to enter Mackenzie’s classroom instead of waiting in the office, which Taylor said was incredibly meaningful for her.

Taylor said it took Mackenzie more than ten minutes to recover from the shock of looking up and seeing her mom walking into her classroom, saying that the girl would not speak or smile for many moments, as the shock was a bit overwhelming. After Mackenzie recovered her senses, she and her mom and grandmother then went to her sister Bailey’s Pre-K day care just outside of town so that they could surprise her as well.

Taylor said that they already-memorable day was made even more special by the actions of kind strangers they encountered at the Mel-O-Dee Restaurant after the surprise reunion with the girls.

“There was this woman there who came out of nowhere—I didn’t even remember to get her name—but she asked Mackenzie if she knew what I did,” Taylor said. “She told her that I was her hero because I fight the bad guys and I fight for her and her family…then she was tearing up and I was tearing up…it was very, very nice of her to do that.”

She said that she was also thanked by other Mel-O-Dee diners that morning, some of them veterans themselves who told her that they appreciated her service. “I told them that I was thankful for what they had done, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do what I do now,” Taylor said.

She said that the girls have been staying with her parents Renee and Ronnie Salyers while she is stationed out-of-state, and that they will remain with their grandparents when she is deployed for nine to twelve months beginning this spring. Having been stationed at a base in Savannah, Georgia for the past couple of years, Taylor said that the girls initially moved down to Georgia to be with her, but she decided that they should come back home to stay instead of moving back and forth so much.

Mackenzie’s first grade teacher Julianne Howell said she knew of Mackenzie’s overwhelming desire to see her mother at Christmastime, noting how moving it was to witness the emotional reunion between mother and child. Howell said she had assigned a writing assignment to her class, asking them to describe one gift that they would like to buy someone for Christmas.

“She wrote that she wouldn’t buy anything—she said she would just give her mom a hug,” Howell said of Mackenzie’s project.

Howell said she also assigned the class a project on giving three clues about the gift they wanted most this year, noting that Mackenzie skipped the clue portion altogether and told the class that she just wanted her mom to come home for Christmas.

“She has been so heartbroken lately that her mom isn’t home for the holidays,” Howell said, adding that she believes it will do the girl a world of good to be able to spend Christmas with her mom.

Taylor said during their regular Face Time sessions, that Mackenzie will only last around ten or fifteen minutes before breaking down and telling her mom that she wants to come back to Georgia to be near her, often grabbing a bag and filling it with belongings to show her mom how serious she is about wanting to travel back to her.

“We call it fighting the bad guys…she always asks why I have to do it,” Taylor said. “I tell her that I do it for her.”

Taylor will have to leave three days after Christmas, saying that she will truly savor the ten days she gets to spend with her family this holiday season.

“We’re going to spend as much time together as possible and just enjoy being with each other,” Taylor said.