And Presents Under the Tree…..

Gift giving. Is there anything so joyful as an innocent child on Christmas morning?  Surrounded in wrapping paper remnants and beaming from ear to ear? I say no – that is a beautiful moment for any child and parent.  Unfortunately, they grow up.  Into teenagers.  I really don’t need to say any more to those readers that have or have had teens.  For the rest of you, I will explain.

I was recently with a group of parents discussing the upcoming holiday and truthfully I had to work very hard to keep my thoughts to myself.  Lest I offend. (Shocker, I know).  Here in this group of successful parents a discussion was brewing about what were the best gifts to get for their kids.  A new phone?  A Laptop? Airpods? WHAT?

First of all, most of these kids have so much stuff already cluttering up their lives that they won’t appreciate any of those things for more than 5 minutes.  I don’t care how much they want it, how many of their friends have one or that it’s the cool new thing.  Makes me wonder if its more about these parents competing to be the better gift givers than it is about the kids being the gift receivers. All done of course in an effort to be their kids “best friend.” As I repeatedly tell my children, “I am not your friend.  I do not want to be your friend. Most of the time I don’t even really like you.”

Our house doesn’t work the way these other family’s houses work– maybe because there are too many of us or maybe because we are too cheap. Or both. Probably both.   I can appreciate that kids want to fit in by having the cool stuff.  But life lesson alert – Money can’t buy happiness. And the real gift of Christmas isn’t about the stuff.     

Fundamentally– kids want very simple things.  They are just too stupid to get out of their own way and acknowledge what those things are.  They want food, clothing, shelter, safety, encouragement and to know they have the unconditional love of their parents.  Unconditional love that sets boundaries, enforces rules and provides the safety net so needed during adolescence.  They want to have the memories that start with “when I was a kid,” or “one time my mom…” or “on Christmas we always…” 

I don’t think that when my headstrong and demanding child gets older and moves away he is going to look back and say Christmas  was great because he got a new phone.  I’m hoping Christmas was great because that was the year that we had a lost relative come to visit.  Or because he stayed up all night with his siblings watching old movies.  Or simply because we were all together snoozing on the couch with the Heatmiser singing his song in the background.

These are the mental snapshots of childhood that yellow and curl with age but are all the more cherished because of it. If you doubt me, go to your Facebook feed and look – no ones best Christmas memory is an old photo of them alone with the 1957 equivalent of the new iPhone or a pair of Yeezys.