It's easy to start to feel tired, worn-down, frustrated, maybe even down-right resentful at this time of year. The pressure is put on us to buy, spend, and even borrow to make Christmas day the ultimate day of the year. Christmas is a time to celebrate Christ; it is also a time when charity and love for our family, friends, and fellow travelers on this earth meets merchandizing. This time of year I always have a hard time figuring out how the two fit together.
On the one hand, shouldn't Christmas be simple? What happened to the days my Grandmother talks of where each child got an orange--a rarity in Central Utah during the depression--and maybe a nickel?
On the other hand, if the wise men themselves started the tradition of gifts at Christmas it couldn't be all bad, right?
I am a chronic over-thinker when it comes to Christmas. My most notable calamity happened a few years ago when I decided that every gift I gave should be unique and perfect for the individual. A fine idea when it comes to soccer tickets for my husband and the ideal garden book for the in-laws, but I cramped half-way through the season, however, when I found myself shopping for used, discontinued Tupperware for my mom and buying a Brian Regan CD for my eighty-five-year-old grandmother.
There are some times when a generic sweater or fruit basket is not only acceptable, it is preferable.
This year, my six-year-old is the first one to have wrapped presents and put them under the tree. Her packages are about the size and shape of a Scrabble tile. In a fit of creativity that passed once we left Michael's, we'd purchased resin tags to customize and make into luggage tags for her dad. I got busy grading finals and she took matters into her own hands with scissors and bright green wrapping paper. She wrapped five the clear, uncustomized tags by herself. She very carefully fit the recipients' names across the tiny packages: no small task for unwieldy first grade print.
Four small packages sit under our tree. The fifth has already been delivered to Ms. Hirst, her first grade teacher, who surely ooohed and ahhhed over the perhaps puzzling, but certainly heartfelt gift. I know first-hand what Ms. Hirst's reaction might have been because I was mom helper on one day when she received a gift from another student. She opened it at the first of the day, during "rug time," when the twenty-five six-year-olds sit on the floor around Ms. Hirst's chair. She carefully unwrapped the present--a Santa door hanger--and smiled. She said how excited she was to have it and how she would keep it at school and then at Christmas break she would take it home and hang it in her house. She was sincere and the appreciation she emanated made me wish I'd been the one to give her the door hanger.
I should learn from my sweet six-year-old and her teacher: to give--and receive--from the heart. They seem to have the spirit of the season figured out in first grade; they know it's about the excitement of giving, not what's in the tiny package, that counts. And, that gifts at Christmas are important because they are the reflection of the greatest of all gifts.
