Christmas is for Getting

Getting all the right presents. Getting to Chicago. Getting to Iowa City. Getting to Grinnell. Getting the food ready. Getting the presents ready. Getting yourself and your children ready in some nice or at least presentable clothes. Getting to church. Getting along with your family for two whole days. And, finally, getting the gifts you want.

It may seem simple to get gifts for kids. It is anything but simple. Philip and I tend to over-think the whole process. Somehow we feel that the gifts we give to our kids are indicative of our core values, our worldview, and our priorities.

When we were new parents, we bought Sumner nothing for Christmas (and we deprived him of sugar). He had lots of stuff already and got lots of stuff from family and friends and we were playing at minimalism (and, like with the sugar, he didn’t know any better).

We steadily increased our intake of toys. Essentially Phil and I wanted certain toys to play with, with our kids. So, Sumner starting getting more stuff for Christmas. The year we lived in England we bought our first Christmas gifts, mainly because we were living in 500 square feet with about 7 toys and we wanted more entertainment.

The last two years, Philip and I have been shopping down to the last minute.

Two years ago on Christmas Eve we were sitting on the floor of Toys R Us at 11:45 PM deciding between three toy castles. The wooden one? So Pottery Barn, cool colors, no movable parts. The Playmobile one? German (thus still cool even if it is plastic), a few moveable parts, fits with Sumner’s fleet of Playmobile knights, painters, airport passengers, and horses. The Fisher Price one? Not cool, lots of moveable parts, fits with nothing we have, good battle-play options. The moveable parts won out. When I was a kid, I had a lot of toys that grow-ups thought were cool. I was redoing my childhood by buying the Fisher Price junk. Sumner and Phil loved it and still play with it.

Last year we went round and round trying to make the best decisions and we took it down to the last minute, which included several calls to Alaska to a guy (who was selling Millennium Falcons with five Star Wars action figures at a very discounted rate) to make sure he shipped Sumner’s gift on time and several hateful trips to Toys R Us. In the end we were frustrated that we wasted so much time acquiring a bunch of things we’d be spending 2005 cleaning up. The kids were wide-eyed on Christmas morn, but we were anxious because it was obvious we overdid it. So we vowed to do things differently next year.

This year Philip instituted the new way of making three Christmas lists: One of things you’re thankful for, one of things you’d like to give to other people, and one of the things you want to get (see my blog from a few weeks ago). This was a great start to a new and improved Christmas getting season. The second great start (so I thought) to the season of getting was that I bought everything online one afternoon. No crowds, no babysitters, no long debates with Phil over getting just the right thing, no shuttling across town to get the best price, no paying for parking—just me in front of a computer screen two weeks before Christmas getting the job done. Phil was napping.

After I bought all of this stuff, the coaching began. I started to remind the kids, pretty much daily, what they wanted to get for Christmas. I stayed on-message everyday, even when I spotted in store windows things that looked better. Sometimes I had to review my amazon.com list of “to be shipped items” so that I could carefully target my propaganda, convincing them so they get things they wanted. Ramona was an easy sell. I whispered “suitcase, binoculars, leotard, watch, puzzles, books, suitcase, binoculars…” to her each night as she slept and she regurgitated the same list each day.

Sumner was a little trickier. When I ordered the gifts he really wanted an Icee maker, suddenly Imaginex action figures and Yu-gi-o cards were his hearts desires. I reminded him that he really wanted a suitcase, he looked at me blankly, acknowledging nothing, and said that he also wanted a new Lego set. There was more whispering at night and more explicit reminding during the daylight hours. Still, his list changed, nearly daily. Maybe last minute shopping has an upside.

All this coaching reminded me of a story. A few years ago one of Sumner’s friend’s opened up a Christmas gift and squealed. Turning to her mother, she said, “Look, Mom, just what you wanted me to get for Christmas.” What is a mother to do?

There was another chink in my plan. Phil visited a toy store. Suddenly the nap I thought he appreciated getting and the few free weekend and evening hours he had free and had been able to relax (instead of spent shopping or masterminding Christmas shopping) were not gifts. Me taking care of the shopping was no favor. In the toy store he saw things that he wanted to play with. He felt cut out of the deal, robbed of the chance to consume and take part in the material aspect of Christmas. I even selected and bought my own Christmas gift from Phil. I love it.

Christmas is for getting—so much pressure to get it right and make people happy.

The kids spent several nights making gifts for family members and they made some pretty cool stuff. They get into giving this year and that’s a good thing. In the end the kids loved their gifts—even the Icee maker. We didn’t get too much and we didn’t get too little. Philip thought I did good and I think he’s happy he didn’t have to spend a couple Saturdays in Toys R Us. He just he wants to be involved in the process. I understand that.

I am enjoying this season. It wasn’t too rushed or too stressful for me. I did less—I went to about half of the parties I was invited to. Christmas dinner is simpler and our tree isn’t worthy of Martha Stewart. Less is more. Getting less gives you more.