So, every year someone talks about how it's the little things that make Christmas special. Every year you think, "yeah, right...". But I'm here to tell you, there may be something to it...
I grew up in a family with 4 kids, and Mom and Dad weren't rich--we never wanted for anything, but let's just say we weren't Rockefellers. We were also a religious family, not pounding door to door with bibles, but we went to church every week, and especially on holidays. So when Christmas came around, we each got one big present, the "whatever" we really really wanted, and some smaller ones. We planned our festivities around the times we went to church, and even though as a child you didn't relish the time spent there, there was a certain magesty about it that lent a festive solemnity to Christmas that made it special. I still remember the lighting of advent wreaths, and the massive nativity scene that was set up in our parish church every year, celebrating the birth behind the holiday.
Christmas meant more than just the gifts we received, not that I'm complaining about the gifts, I LOVED the gifts. It's just that there was two parts of Christmas, the presents AND the religion. It often gets overlooked in the commercialized hubbub of today that Christmas is a celebration of Christ, not a celebration of Toys 'R' Us, or Walmart or any other large retailer. Just recently this was shown to me by my daughter, who goes to our local catholic school, when she received a Virtue Award, for celebrating the virtue of Hope in December by reminding her classmates that Christmas wasn't just about presents, it was about Jesus. I was there in the gym when she received her certificate and watched her proudly display it, and it was my first gift this Christmas.
It can be easy to feel resentful of Christmas, when you think about all the money required to have a "perfect" Christmas. This year finds me unemployed at the holidays, so I am extra conscious of the pennies spent in pleasing our kids. I don't subscribe to the notion that they have to have the most stuff of any kid in school, but I also don't want them to feel like they are short-changed. I don't resent buying them stuff they'll enjoy, just that feeling that if they don't have as many presents as the Jones', I'm being a neglectful parent. No parent wants to deny their child happiness, but should we feel we have to spend our last shekels buying it?
"I may not be rich in material things, but I am rich where it
counts..."
This line comes in many fables and fairy tales, but it has some validity to it. I can be rich if I have many valued friends. I am definitely rich if I have my family around me. I can assure you that there is only one moment in one's life that's more desolate than when Christmas Eve comes around and you are alone. That moment is when you are done watching your kids open their presents, you see how happy they are, then you have to leave.
The best gift I have ever received was when my wife and I, separated for more than two years, reconciled. It wasn't at Christmas, but it I still count it a gift every day, and every special occaision that requires the giving of gifts. It completes my list, every time. It gave me back the one person I was meant to be with, and it gave me back my family. It cost nothing, yet it is the only gift that keeps on giving. Giving moments of both extreme happiness, and extreme frustration, and all the little points in between.
So indeed, it was with great relief that I surveyed my children's happy faces this morning as they tore into their lovingly wrapped packages (my beautiful wife is to thank for that, not me). We managed to pull it off for one more year. Even as those happy children, only a few moments later, ripped into each other, I still thanked the Lord for my gifts this Christmas, because they fit just perfectly.
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