A Lovely Loveless Christmas

Yes it was. A very lovely Christmas. Ryan had a little mini depression as I was taking it all down, as he should have. I really love decorating our home for Christmas...maybe one year we will actually be in our own house on Christmas! But in the meantime, we have thoroughly enjoyed spending every Christmas with either my Mom or Ryan's parents. We spent 2 nights in Tooele and it really was enjoyable. I think the only regret I had this Christmas was perhaps that we bought too much for the boys. I didn't think we had, because I starting shopping early and tucked things away, but then I pulled it out to wrap and I was like "What the heck?" The thing is, by many others' standards, we didn't even get them all that much. But, I felt it. I felt the pit when I saw the ridiculous amount of gifts under the tree. I don't want my kids to put such value on "stuff". Stuff doesn't make you happy, in fact, it often consumes so much of your emotional and financial resources that it really makes you unhappy in the end.

There were 8 kids in my family and let's be honest...unless my Dad owned the gas company where he worked, Christmas was always going to be on the lean side. But oh, how we loved Christmas. And ironically, the years that were really lean somehow are the ones that I remember being the most happy. I don't remember the stuff so much...but I remember all the little things that Mom and Dad did to make the holiday special. The kissing ball, made from pine cones and mini-plastic cups, all of Mom's little figurines she had collected through the years, the 'real tree' years, hanging all that tinsel on the tree and then Mom redoing it after we all went to bed, the Christmas Eve outing with Dad, Mom making every package look so perfect, Dad hanging all the lights, perfectly straight, with a star a top the antenna on the house, the jar of hard tack candy (the raspberry ones were my favorite), the dish of mixed nuts with the silver nutcracker, Dad always handing out the gifts, the company party at the Rec Hall, ...I could go on and on.

Perhaps that's why I am obsessed with making pretty packages. I know that many of them will likely go unnoticed, and worse, what took 15 minutes to make pretty, will be on the floor in 15 seconds. Mom passed that onto me. I like pretty paper. I like pretty ribbon. I like pretty packages. I like the lights on the house, and I want them perfectly straight, just like Dad did. I vow to find the hard tack candy like they used to make and to buy the nuts still in the shell, even if I am the only one who eats them.

And this is why my children will be getting less stuff. Do they deserve the world? Yes. And they want it given to them in time and attention and love. Toys cannot replace memories. And memories, as I've pointed out, are what last.