December 15, 2002

• The Twelve Days After Christmas -

  
  

  On the first day after Christmas, my true love and I had a fight
  So I chopped the pear tree down, and burned it just for spite.
  And with a single cartridge, I shot that blasted partridge,
  That my true love gave to me.

  
  

  On the second day after Christmas, I pulled on the old rubber gloves
  And very gently wrung the necks of both the turltedoves.
  The third day after Christmas, my mother caught the croup
  I had to use the three french hens to make some chicken soup.

  
  

  The four calling birds were a big mistake, for their language was obscene
  The five golden rings were completely fake, they turned my fingers green.
  

  
  

  On the sixth day after Christmas, the six laying geese wouldn't lay
  So I packed the whole flock off to the ASPCA
  On the morning of the seventh what a mess I found
  All seven of the swimming swans had drowned

  
  

  The eighth day after Christmas, I was a mental wreck
  So I wrapped the eight maids a milking, nine ladies dancing, ten pipers piping, 'leven lords a leaping, twelve drummers drumming ...

  
  

  (Okay, I kept one of the drummers)

  
  

  And I sent them back - collect.

  
  

  I told my true love, we are through, love, and I said in so many words - furthermore, your Christmas gifts were for the birds.

  
  

  (I don't know the author of this lyric, it's a song I learned in Junior High that remains one of my seasonal favorites.)

  
  

  We did some of our Christmas shopping yesterday.  Several years back, Tim said, "Honey, when I was a kid, I got clothes for Christmas every year, and I always felt let-down.  Let's not do that to our kids, lets just give them a toy even if it's just one toy, that they will be excited about and play with."

  
  

  This year, we looked around our home and noticed that it looks like we've been invaded by the bleeding toy brigade.  So we broke our vow.  We are giving them "dumb old clothes" for Christmas.  But, you know what, that's what our kids asked for.  How's that for a shocker?  Here we've been feeling all proud of ourselves for "doing it right" and all along we've been doing the same thing Tim's parents did.  We've been deciding based on our own childhood experience what would best please our kids instead of looking at them and giving them gifts tailored to them as individuals.

  
  

  Gift giving looks so easy on the commercials.  Buy this toy, that sweater, those cd's/DVD's and the home entertainment system to go with them.  Don't overlook the camera you need to record the moments when those sleepy-eyed kids tear into their packages.  And if you really love her, give her diamonds.

  
  

  In real life, as with almost everything that the commercials get wrong, gift giving takes more thought, more work, and less money than the retailers would like us to believe.  One of the best Christmas gifts I've heard of for children is the year that my cousin spent a month or more in her basement sewing a wardrobe of costumes.  She picked up the fabrics on clearance after Halloween and gave her daughters the gift of imagining themselves princesses, cowgirls, and adventurers.  She used velcro fastenings that were easily adjustable as the girls grew and now, years later, they still talk about that as the best gift they ever received.  Total monetary investment?  Approximately $60 divided among three girls.

  
  

  Last year, my aunt worked with her grandchildren and for Christmas the kids recited the Christmas story from the books of Luke and Matthew and the poem "The Night before Christmas" as a gift to their parents.

  
  

  I remember a few of the gifts I received when I was a child in my parents' home.  But, the most of what I remember is the sheer fun of Christmas.  My Dad was Santa.  His greatest regret is that his children don't always spend Christmas under his roof so he can continue to be Santa.  He played the game in a way that we all wish we could pass on to our kids.  We hatched the plan that we would "catch him" in the act.  Daddy, being Daddy, wasn't about to let himself get caught.

  
  

  So he plotted for weeks how he would evade our traps.  Fugitive and wormy took to sleeping under the tree to catch him.  He took to ... I don't know how he did it unless he spiked their cocoa, but he slipped in so quietly that he never woke them or anyone else.  They would open their eyes on Christmas morning to find that they were sleeping on or under their presents.   (Last year wormy wrote a Xanga post about the year he woke up under a new bicycle.  He was startled into sitting up quickly - too quickly.  He cut his forehead on the pedal and still has a scar.)  Two years ago, wormy was home for Christmas.  I guarantee you, at almost 30 years of age, he slept under the tree and my Dad loved it.  I'd bet you anything that neither of them remember what gift he got that year, but they'll never forget the game.

  
  

  I'm not suggesting that every family should adopt the same tradition my family played out.  I'm not even sure that MY kids will ever do it.  We have our own traditions.  Michael is very easily over-stimulated.  When his tank gets full, he doesn't have any fun, he just sits and cries.  So we started the tradition of stretching out the opening of gifts and interspersing it with other activities.  We open a few, then break for breakfast and talk about how much fun it was to see ________ open the ________.  Then we go back and open a few more.  Last year took us less time than ever to open the presents, we were finished a little after noon.  I think one year we started by opening one on Christmas Eve and we didn't open the last one until about 6 pm on Christmas Day.   Not because we had so very many presents, but because we took time to play with each one for a while as we opened them.

  
  

  You may think it's weird, but it works for us.  I don't know what my kids will look back and remember about Christmas in our family.  I hope they remember their Mom and Dad down on the floor playing with them.  I hope they remember that shopping was an adventure in scoping out their brother, plotting the perfect gift, then buying and hiding it for weeks until it was present wrapping day.  I think that they have almost as much fun on the day they bring the presents out of hiding and invite each other to shake and guess as they do on the day they open them.

  
  

  Today was present wrapping day.  We placed the gifts around the base of our tree and I shook my head at the sheer number of boxes (we've also been known to wrap socks individually for more unwrapping fun - I admitted up front that we are odd.)  Michael said, "Mom, lean down."  So I bent my head (he's tall enough now that I don't really have to lean).  And he said, "I can't wait to see Tucker smile."

  
  

  And really, isn't that the best gift?

  • 6:29 pm
  • 19 Comments