Publish Post
Okay, so I've never had conventional Christmas lists.
One year as a kid I just asked Santa for a really really big box. Fortunately, my obliging father sought me out a refrigerator box which over the next week became a fort, a school bus and a house with windows cut out until I left it on the lawn overnight and it turned to mush.
But I do remember becoming exceedingly excited as a child wandering down the hall Christmas morning to discover that Santa had, indeed, come and had brought me treasures. When I asked how he got them into our house with no fireplace, I was told he used the sliding glass doors, of course. At 5 it was a Scooter with fat, white tires that my parents had refurbished and painted blue and pink. A couple of years later it was a Wishbone stuffed animal dressed as Robin Hood.
Who else saw the YouTube medly of children freaking out, crying, hyperventilating (and one even vomited) from excitement at unwrapping a Christmas gift? If only we were still so easy to please.
The truth is, though, that as people age, their priorities shift-- thank goodness-- and the things we want most in life can't be wrapped or fit into a stocking: Good health for ourselves and our families, less stress at work or school, a better love life. A friend joked on Facebook a few weeks ago that her 7 year old self would be horrified that her 23 year old self was asking for an eye exam and teeth cleaning for Christmas; I'm pretty sure all my mom really wants for the holidays is a nap.
But we make Christmas lists anyway, probably more out of tradition than anything. Mine this year was labeled "Ariel's list of suggestions for the prevention of holiday-related parental stress" and while it did contain several items I was confident would not be taken entirely seriously (headscratches, hot Latin boyfriend), the requests have become more practical (a tank of gas, cherry rooibos tea). In a couple of hours (I may be the first one awake this Christmas, but I intend to let my parents sleep in the year and I am not going to sneak out to the tree to shake and poke all the presents) my parents and I will probably exchange gourmet coffee and microbrew, and a few other tidbits. My Dad wanted an extra long man-sized yoga mat, my mom a magazine subscription. The truth is, though, that one of the things we all want is less stuff. Less to store, less to trip over while probably not using it anyway, less to move next time my nomadic life relocates me, less to waste our time and money on.
Because when it comes down to it, for me, Christmas isn't about what's stuffed in my stocking. Christmas is about the smell of Fraser fir, getting together with long-time friends for Southern dinner and Dirty Santa gift swaps, making Fairy Gingerbread with my grandfather, walking the lights on Verbena, the photo of the family in front of our broom-stick tree, Portuguese Kale Soup (a New England comfort food if I ever heard of one) and listening to the Polar Express before bed. Christmas is about people. It's about the ones you love and spending time with them enjoying tradition and sharing the holiday spirit.
...and hopefully headscratches and a hot Latin boyfriend.
