Christmas is not what it used to be is it? Nicole Gauthier sparked that thought in my mind with a great post on LinkedIn. She had a Christmassy image of her family with accompanying season appropriate verbiage.
She listed things that as a child she and her brother enjoyed most about Christmas:
- The countdown
- The delicious food
- The gifts (she asserts she could not lie about that)
She continues, listing time with family among other things that made the season special. She mentioned now she has the added joy of watching her children “enjoying the festivities.”
But it gave me cause to put on my Grinch hat. Make no mistake, I am very happy for Nicole and her family. I have enjoyed all those things she described. I just hope I have passed the enjoyment on to our three daughters and then their kids.
I remember enjoying my acting parts in the Christmas programs at church. I remember Santa arriving after the programs and the brown paper bag of candy each of us received. I wondered why they wasted all that space in the bag with an apple and an orange when it could have been better filled with more candy! I would have liked more of those candy orange slices or those little cubes of peanut brittle.
I know I should have been caught up in the significance of the story and not just the festivities of the season, but for me, I still remember the bag, with the candy orange slices and the small cubes of peanut brittle. With the season came the assurance of gifts, they were sure to come later. In the back of everyone’s mind, us kids at least, was the growing anticipation of those gifts.
Closer to Christmas some gifts had already begun appearing under our tree. But we all knew THE REAL GIFTS were the sometimes big, extraordinary gifts Santa would bring in the dark of night. They would be things that were not there when you went to bed the night before…but were crowding the tree at the early hour which you thought acceptable to finally get yourself out of bed.
These gifts would be things we could not have ever hoped to acquire for ourselves. When asking for things at Christmas and making a list, cost, availability, or need never entered our young minds. It was all about wants. Yet, I don’t remember ever being disappointed.
We siblings, myself, my sister, and two brothers each bought a gift for each other. This required planning as the only money we had was from our meager (looking back) allowances.
To my credit, I actually gave some thought to the gifts I was responsible for, what could they be, what could I afford? The same process was replicated for Mom and Dad. We could always count on help from Mom.
There was also the secretive process of “the drawing of the names.” We did this for our larger maternal and paternal families of cousins. It happened usually at Thanksgiving when the families gathered at separate times. For me, this marked the beginning of Christmas, and then as the calendar moved us closer over weeks and then days, it built to a crescendo of excitement. In those days Madison Avenue did not move us directly from Halloween to Christmas.
My hope was (I do not think I prayed yet and that would have been really selfish anyway) that a good giver would get my name. For me, the name I drew required careful thought trying to figure out what the secret recipient might like, hoping to come up with something that would please them. I usually tried to buy something I would have liked for myself. Somehow at an early age I understood giving and looked forward to giving a gift that would be appreciated and used, maybe even needed. It was almost as much fun as getting a nice gift yourself.
I doubt I have been able to pass my excitement of Christmas on to my daughters. I blame distance and time. Many miles separate us all now and everyone is so busy. I’m sure some excitement remains in the succeeding generations, but nowhere near the levels I recall. But, there are some memories. I remember getting of of the car as we went with a daughter, her husband and their young boy & girl twins to “Santa’s House” for a Christmas event. As he climbed out of the car the little guy muttered to himself, “I didn’t know Santa even had a house!”
I think the excitement of my generation has been lost, maybe taken, or possibly even given up. I blame the busyness of today’s society. I salute parents such as Nicole and others of like mind who are seeking to protect their young families from what society would steal from them. It is their responsibility to pass on the joy and excitement that was almost automatic in my generation. And hide, at least for a while, the crass commercialism of our day.
You see today, even the gifting process is markedly different. Most of today’s kids have everything they might want and then some. It is difficult to “wow” a kid these days. Clicking a listed item on an Amazon list passes for shopping. Where is the joy and excitement in that?
I hope we all understand that it is not the gifts and the programs, that this is all really about anyway. It is really about a gift already given to us. A well-thought-out gift. A needed gift. A gift waiting only to be received. It is the gift of Jesus coming to take upon himself the sin with which we are all born.
We know the Wise Men from the East traveled far to bring their gifts. Theirs were expensive gifts but they were rich, could afford it, and from the ancient writings they knew they were coming to pay homage to a king. So, bring your best!
The Book of Ephesians tells us that it is “by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”
It is an exceptionally good gift we should all be about receiving.
I did not want to go full “bah humbug,” and Nicole said she wouldn’t send me any coal and wished me happiness and hope for a wonderful holiday. I liked that!
Since Christmas is past, Happy New Year. It’s a more secular and for me not as exciting an occasion.