The Gift

As it turns out, like turkey, I’m not a big fan of Christmas. Well, not Christmas per se, but what it’s become.

In this seemingly suspended time after Christmas and before the New Year, I started unpacking boxes of books. While doing so, I decided to flip through a couple and came across a maple leaf, pressed in between pages —- the leaf was a “gift,” from my Dad decades ago. It got me thinking.

A few years back when I was living in Southern California, I was watching the local morning news. Christmas was about a week away. A reporter was out on the street in Los Angeles, interviewing kids who were lined up by the hundreds, waiting to meet Santa, with their gift lists in hand. The kids were accompanied by their working class parents, waiting patiently on a line which was endlessly snaking around the block.

The reporter randomly approached each kid, asking what was the one thing they wanted for Christmas. One-by-one, the responses would be a bike, an X-Box, a tablet and so forth. In short, what these kids were hoping for were enormously expensive and clearly out of reach financially. I know this because I watched the parents’ reaction as their child responded to the reporter’s question. They became overcome, put their head down, clearly consumed with grief and guilt. Plainly, under no circumstance would their child’s wish come true. It made me sad. And made me wonder why in the world the question was being posed, on tv, in front of the world, embarrassing and humiliating the hell out of parents who could not come through.

I wasn’t the only one. Apparently there was such a public outrage over how the local network was conducting these interviews that kind, ordinary people were arriving on the scene with donations, bikes, X-Boxes and tablets. Why the pressure, why the constant drum beat to go into debt over this Christmas holiday, in search of the biggest, the best of “gifts” for our loved ones?

I’ve read countless social media posts over the years of friends filled with guilt because they couldn’t buy their kids expensive gifts, feeling like failures as parents. As if that is the measuring stick for good parenting. It gets worse every year, more consuming, more guilt, more pressure. More disappointment. The biggest and the best. And then poof, it’s over.

Remembering Christmas’ past. My family did not have much money. Working class. Seven of us crammed into a small house with one bathroom. As kids, our expectations were high, but we knew. We’d pour over the Sears, Spiegle and Penny’s Christmas catalogues compiling our lists. My Mom would take us to see Santa Claus, the same Santa Claus every year, who was so very real —- an actual white beard, white hair and jolly. We believed. But when it came right down to it, we knew that 99.99% of the items on our list would not be under the tree, the same tree that appeared out of nowhere and decorated on Christmas Eve.

Then the big day. So excited we were up before the sun. We would gather on the stairs while my Dad dragged out the movie camera to film us coming down into the still and quiet living room. The tree lights twinkling reflecting off the tinsel we had carefully draped over each branch, under the strict supervision of my Dad. It was magical.

The absolute best part were our stockings. My Mom (Santa), filled them to the brim with goodies and trinkets. We would take our spot by the collection of gifts with our names. In that collection was one “big gift,” sometimes, but not always, one from our list — many were homemade, or treasures handed down or books or momentos. No matter, we knew every one of them were heartfelt.

We were taught it was not necessarily about “the gift,” which I’d forgotten, as my sister was quick to point out the other day. And that a card, something made, anything unconditional, was among the greatest.

Somewhere and somehow we’ve drifted away. Christmas over the years has become hugely commercialized and frankly, in my lifetime, has always been. We’ve lost our ability to connect with each other, to key in on the Spirit of the season, the fellowship, the relationships, community.

In the approaching years we are going to need each other more than ever. We will need to connect, to form communities. There are boundless “gifts” before us that don’t come from stores. We just need to pause for a moment and find them while we have the time. And learn once again what it means to share and become.

My biggest wish for the coming New Year is that we can take a moment from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and commit to being present with those who are important to us, who bring us joy and peacefulness.

Because one day, decades later, while unpacking a box of books, you may come across a maple leaf, pressed in between the pages of a book, from your Dad, who’s no longer here, and you can’t tell him how much you love it. And the sentiment and thought that went into choosing that one special maple leaf.