The past couple months of moving and remodeling have been hectic and stressful, but hugely rewarding and we have settled into our new home just in time for my son's third Christmas. The house's central rooms are dressed up with Christmas ornaments, strings of lights and the throughway at the bottom of the stairwell boasts our biggest-ever Christmas tree! We are anticipating a very cozy, merry first Christmas in our new home.
This time of year, almost everywhere you go someone will ask you,
"Are you ready for Christmas?"
or the perhaps even more common,
"Did you get all your Christmas shopping done?"
I never quite know how to answer these questions. Here's the thing--I don't really do 'Christmas shopping' anymore: At least not in the way a lot of people think of it. My husband and I don't exchange gifts for Christmas and until this year my son hasn't been old enough to really appreciate much about Christmas and associated traditions, so I've done very little of what most people would call "Christmas shopping" in the past few years. I can appreciate that Christmas shopping and wrapping can be a fun and positive activity and I appreciate the spirit of those who enjoy it. I'm just not one of them--
For me, holidays where gift-giving is customary have always been wrought with an overwhelming sense of pressure and obligation that ruin the spirit in which I feel gifts ought to be given. I can't speak for anyone else specifically but it seems to me that other people must be experiencing this pressure too or even the feeling that compulsory-obligatory gifting at Christmas is necessary or expected, as is implied by that ever-familiar question,
"Did you get all your Christmas shopping done?"
It's as though we've come to think of Christmas as more of a deadline than a time for charity and fellowship. I think maybe many of us are stuck in this place where we feel like we must come up with some material gift to give to all of our family members and loved ones at Christmastime for reasons like,
"If I get something for ______ but I don't have anything for ______, I worry ______ will feel bad."
"Well, I got him something last year and I don't want him to think I forgot about him this year."
"I know ______ is going to get me something like she did last year and I don't want her to think I didn't care enough to get her something too."
--And probably many more reasons that involve not wanting to hurt someone's feelings. I get it-- I used to agonize over what to get for people and try to anticipate who is likely to get a gift for me, for whom I ought to have a gift stashed away 'just in case', of what 'caliber' their gift for me is likely to be and every year when I think how many people must be agonizing in this same way, my heart grows heavy and my brain wants to explode and I wonder why we all do this every year; why we set a 'gifting precedent' each year that makes the following year's gift feel more and more obligatory and contrived. I know I can't be the only one who's ever felt this way.
Since I had my son, each year I face the added dilemma of trying to strike some kind of comfortable balance between giving James a 'normal' childhood experience of Christmas while not placing so much emphasis on receiving and opening gifts--and each year I worry that I haven't quite accomplished that either--
On his first Christmas morning, a then 9 month old James 'unwrapped' (Ahem! I unwrapped) one new toy and one used toy I had picked up at a thrift store months earlier when I saw how much it made him giggle. This was the new toy (one he still plays with today)...
Oh, and he got a pack of new socks, that lucky kid!
Doesn't he look thrilled? I think I may have also wrapped a book and put it under the tree for him that year.
On James' second Christmas, in keeping with the previous year's modest motif, I decided to get him exactly three gifts, symbolizing the gifts said to have been brought to Jesus by the "Three Wise Men" (frankincense, myrrh and gold). The gift symbolizing frankincense was literally a bottle of frankincense-infused baby wash (yes, I wrapped it :-P). The gift symbolizing myrrh was one of my favorite childhood books, "Love you forever." This was supposed to represent 'spirituality' but I guess I wasn't feeling very spiritual back then or I just struggled to find a book or memento that I felt appropriately represented 'myrrh' that he could appreciate at his young age. A bible didn't seem right to me at the time so I figured a book that treasured the love between mother and child could serve as a close second.
Except I don't know what I was thinking buying this book, seeing as I cannot so much as look at the cover without tearing up, let alone read through it without sobbing uncontrollably.
The gift symbolizing gold was a 1970's vintage Fisher Price Sesame Street Apartment play-house with 6 Little People (including Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, etc), and a few accessories. I had held onto some of the toys I used to play with as a kid that were my mother's, some of which were Fisher Price Little People play-houses. When James was born, I decided that if I was going to hold onto these play-houses I ought to start gradually collecting some Little People and their accessories to go along with them. So the 'gold gift' for James' second Christmas were some additions to his budding vintage Fisher Price collection.
This is what our Christmas morning bounty looked like last year...
This year I almost decided not to put any gifts under the tree for James to open on Christmas morning. I know--GASP! I'm not kidding. I thought to myself,
"He isn't really in need of anything. I don't plan on teaching him that 'Santa Claus' is real so I'm not under any pressure to make presents appear under the tree by Christmas morning and most importantly, I really don't want James to grow up thinking that Christmas is all about him having fun opening presents."
Instead of focusing on how to make James' third Christmas fun, I decided to come up with a way for James to make someone else's Christmas a little nicer. This year, we started a Christmas tradition of giving that I hope James and I will both cherish and enjoy each year as he grows older and we learn together what the spirit of Christmas is really about.
First we needed to get ourselves in a Christmas-y mood. So we turned on some Christmas music while we hung lights and decorated our tree...
Then we began dreaming up our first Christmas Giving project. I considered having James donate some of his old toys or having him help pack a box of gifts to send to a child in need, but I really wanted our first Christmas Giving project to be something that allowed James to give in a more active, hands-on way and I wanted it to be something that he could understand. One of the first ideas that came to mind was to take him to a nursing or retirement home and have him visit with some residents. With the help and advice of a dear friend, I decided that James and I would prepare individual gift bags filled with Christmas treats to give while wishing a Merry Christmas to some residents at a local home for assisted and independent living.
Getting started
Here is James designing his first Christmas treat bag.
Here, James is hard at work coloring various Christmas icons while Mommy cuts them out and pastes them onto brown paper bags.
Still working hard after his bath...
Now, to start making some Christmas treats...
A look at our Christmas treat output...
Filling the treat bags...
204 Christmas treat bags!
What We Learned
204 treat bags were not necessary or even all that useful in lifting the spirits of the residents we visited. Most of them were happy just to see James in his Santa hat and to receive a sweet gesture from him. Although my initial goal was to visit all of the residents at the home (and we did visit quite a few), I learned that our company would have helped in a much more meaningful way if we had spent more focused time with a smaller number of residents. We still were able to put a smile on a lot of faces that day and James seemed to enjoy the residents. Overall, it was a great learning and growing experience that we can build upon and use to guide any future visits.
This time of year when every store echoes with Christmas music and every aisle features a stack of toys and 'gift sets' of all varieties, let us be reminded that the most meaningful gifts come from the heart. I was not prepared to learn how much I really needed this reminder this year. May God bless us all and may we be a blessing to one another. ♥ Merry Christmas!
