The Perfect Present

“You hate Christmas?” Danielle with the lavender highlights exclaimed as I was paying for my cut and color at the beauty parlor. “How can you hate Christmas?”

“I’ll tell you how,” I said as I mounted my high horse and launched into my diatribe. The one I’ve repeated for as many years as I’ve been in charge of Christmas.

Christmas, to me, is like the seashore. I love everything about the shore. I love the sea breezes and the salty air. I love riding my bicycle back and forth on nice, flat terrain. I love salt water taffy and caramel corn and pizza on the boardwalk. I love the lazy, hazy days, outdoor showers and unlocked front doors. I love everything about the shore. Except the sand. If the beach were paved in some sort of soft-to-the-toe-touch astro turf or rubber matting or even real grass, I’d plop down in my beach chair and watch the waves for hours on end, like normal people do.

I love everything about Christmas. I love the smell of pine needles and bayberry candles. I love the cheery salutations and the hustle and bustle. I love the little ornaments and baubles that I pull out of the attic every year and the candlelight Christmas Eve service. I love the sappy TV shows and the holiday parties and the house filling up with wayward children and friends. I love everything about Christmas. Except for the presents. If I could take away all the gift-giving, I’d plop down in my Santa seat and welcome the holiday, like normal people do.

“The bottom line is, Danielle, finding all those perfect presents is just too much work.”

The next day I spoke to my sister, Emily, telephonically. We talk a lot at this time of year. Mainly because we like to get each other worked up. She loves the part of Christmas I hate. To her, the more presents the merrier. When we get together with my side of the family the day after Christmas, we sit in a circle until our haunches are sore, going round and round the room opening gift after gift for hours on end. Nothing makes Emily happier than giving and receiving.

Some years I have won the battle, and only because I’m louder than all three of my sisters combined. Over the years, at my suggestion, we have tried the grab bag option, but someone always grabs the wrong bag. We have tried doing a Secret Santa but someone always gets, or is, the Grinch. We’ve tried filling stockings, but someone always gets the one with a hole in the toe. And so, we buy for everyone. And fill stockings, to boot.

It doesn’t help that my kids, who are no longer kids, but because they came forth from my loins, will always be my kids and will; therefore, forever more be albatrosses around my neck at Christmas time, never want anything. I have to beg them for lists that finally show up two days too late to order from Amazon. And my ever-loving, low-maintenance spouse wants nothing more than family togetherness. But, you just can’t put a ribbon around that.

I tell them every year that this is the end. I’m not buying gifts just for the sake of buying gifts. I’ll give them the hundreds of dollars they want in cold, hard cash and call it a day. It’s just too heart-wrenching to try and find the perfect gift that will elicit the perfect joy. And the problem is, I just won’t stop trying.

Sister Emily came up with a psychologically-sound point in our last insides-shaking induced conversation. The holidays will always find our weakest links and weasel their way in. It doesn’t matter if you have the perfect family with the perfect kids complete with the Labrador retriever or if you have a dysfunctional family filled with lecherous, mothball-scented uncles and surly teenagers. It doesn’t matter if you have a Warren Buffet-rivaling bank account or pinch every penny you sneak into your credit union’s Christmas Club. It doesn’t matter if you have a significant other or no other relatives alive. If you drink too much or teetotal your way through dinner.  If you proselytize over politics or have no idea who Robert Mueller is. It doesn’t matter if you crave a table full of friends or want to simply sink into your shell. If you’re a gourmet cook or call for takeout.  It doesn’t matter if you spin the dreidel or sing Away in a Manger. If you let the holidays discover your Achilles’ heel, whether self-imposed, self-perceived or just plain selfish, those holidays are going to do their best to take you down.

I take what my sister says to heart, even when I shouldn't. And she listens way, way too hard to what comes out of my rapidly-running mouth. But this time, what she said hit home. One person's angst is another's joy. And we're all somewhat in control of our own happiness. 

So, as we approach the final countdown to Christmas, I'm going to do my best to heal my multiple heels and follow my ever-loving, low-maintenance spouse’s example.

Instead of fighting it, I'm going to try just putting a ribbon around it. 

But before I can fully enjoy it, I just need a few more days to finish up my fussing and fuming about all those perfect presents that have yet to be purchased. 

Breaking Tradition

“Mom!” the daughter says in a phone call from a time zone away. “I’ve got a great idea.”

At which point, I cringe. Then, I do what I refuse to do in yoga class. I breathe. And then, I respond.

“What’s your great idea?” I say trepidatiously. Because experience has taught me that when my offspring have a great idea, it either costs me angst, energy or money. Often all three.

“Why don’t we go to Jamaica for Christmas!”

“Great idea!” I say, thinking I’m keeping all traces of disdain out of my voice.

“Why not?” she counters. “You wouldn’t have to buy us any presents. We’ll just go away instead. It could be a new tradition.”

I’m all for traditions. As a matter of fact, my middle name is tradition. And the older I get, the more traditions I tradition. I traditionally go on a Caribbean cruise every year with my bosom buddy Patty, formerly known as Penny. I traditionally go on an annual off-season beach weekend with my friends from college. And then, to another location with the other college friends. I traditionally go to Chapel Hill for yearly reunions with the daughter and her friends and families. I traditionally play in a Hearts tournament every year that Donald traditionally wins. But that’s OK because the winner has to host the next one the next year. And I’m just as happy when it’s not me. And one of my longest standing traditions is attending the night-before-Thanksgiving party at the Schaeffer’s house.

I grew up on Woods Road, a horse-shoe enclave of a road in the suburbs of Philadelphia. My family moved in when I was four years old and the friends I made then are still my friends today. We grew up at the end of an era – that era once known in storybooks as Childhood. We lived a free and fun and unscheduled life and miraculously lived to tell the tale. We roamed the road in a pack, entertaining ourselves by calling phony numbers, riding bicycles from house to house, walking to Perkels’ Pharmacy, contacting JFK through séances on cold, rainy days, and playing Capture the Flag until dark on hot, summer nights.

And then we all grew up and went our separate ways.

But we always come back on Thanksgiving Eve.

There’s a whole tradition around Thanksgiving back on Woods Road which is fully chronicled in a post called The Toilet Bowl.

But, the short of the long story is that the Thanksgiving Eve party is an intergenerational event that isn’t likely to go away unless, of course, the Schaeffer house is sold in a sheriff’s sale. And the likelihood of that happening keeps my hope alive.

“We’re going to stop at Sandy Scott’s house before going to Schaeffer’s this year,” my sister, Emily, announced.

I blanched.

“It will be fun. You’ll get to see Wayne Marcolina and Brian Nelson. Debby Conly will be there. And Sandy’s sister, Linda. You always loved Linda!”

I laughed.

I spent a lifetime in high school jockeying for an invitation to party with the likes of Sandy Scott. She far outweighed me …in the popularity poll. But somehow, in the 40 some years since we’ve been young, the distinct lines between the cheerleaders and the cheerfearers, the druggies and the drugless, the smart and the smart alecs blur and we find common ground, wondering why in the world we never hung out together, way back when.

My blanching had nothing to do with not wanting to fraternize with the friends of Sandy Scott.  I just was afraid to break tradition. My tradition dictated that I went to Schaeffer's and only Schaeffer's on Thanksgiving Eve. And I arrived by 8 pm.  If we went to Sandy Scott’s, I knew I’d want to stay and we’d be late.

And that’s exactly what happened.

But, when all was said and done and I had talked my tongue off both at Sandy Scott’s and at the Schaeffer’s, I realized that traditions can transition and still be just as traditional.

At this time of year, the world is steeped in tradition. We go to annual holiday parties where we spin dreidels and give gelt. We wear red and green and eat stuffed mushrooms and pigs-in-a-blanket. We buy gifts we can’t afford and get gifts we don’t need. We gather at elaborately decorated dinner tables with relatives we don’t like. And we do it all, year after year. Because, it’s what we do.

Traditions can get old and stale. Bothersome and boring. Dull and dreadworthy Unless, of course, you shake things up every now and then. Do something really radical like open presents on Christmas Eve. Engage the drooling Uncle Drew in conversation. Throw the football around with the high school kids. Turn down that one-more glass of wine or piece of pecan pie. You know the one - the one you wish you hadn't had. Or go for it, if you usually don’t. Invite friends to your all-family festivities. Give an unsuspecting, or even an undeserving person a gift. Stop at Sandy Scott’s Thanksgiving Eve party before the Schaeffer’s. 

And, if the Santostefanos don’t invite you for Christmas dinner this year, then go ahead and book that trip to Jamaica.

Because, after all, there's always a new tradition just waiting in the wings for an old tradition to be broken.