No, I Don't Need a Christmas List Anymore
The Christmas list conundrum represents an annual mourning of that yearly payload of magic, where one miraculous morning was guaranteed — and an appreciation for a new, wondrous phase in my life
The email from my mom will arrive any day now and I will cringe: I need your Christmas list. It's a benign message the grows more strident each year, an increasingly pushy Ghost of Christmas Present in Sans Serif font that taunts me over enthusiasm forever lost.
I'm hardly someone who has everything, but I don't have the absences that drive fellow middle-aged men to write angst-ridden essays celebrating their days of freedom — whatever that means.
When you make a living putting words up for sale, "doing without" becomes a lifestyle.
The choices I've made are my own. I am married to a woman I unabashedly love. We have a great kid who is spirited and smart and kind. I'm in good health and have most of my hair. I've chalked up a number of professional accomplishments that won't lead me to apply to law school anytime soon. That I make a living in bedroom slippers is as good as the Pulitzer Prize, probably better since I'd likely have to wear unstained pants to the ceremony.
Not Many Wants
But beyond books and top-shelf pens and nice coffee — "This is a shopping list," my brother responded upon receiving my gift ideas one year — I don't have many wants. I'm not a gadget-booze-cigar guy. I abhor trinkets and doo-dads and bits that blight the path to cash registers.
I'd love to write "cash and plenty of it" to my mom, pay for the driveway not to resemble a road map, and call it a day. When you make a living putting words up for sale, "doing without" becomes a lifestyle. Even though we own a home and I make good money, any purchase that isn't a necessity feels like I'm initiating an extremely lame Shakespearean tragedy. A pox upon your house for parting with scant ducats for boundless wants. A Charlotte Hornets Starter jacket on eBay? Thou must remain humble and mirthless, scribe. And then the septic tank explodes.
The American way is consumerism. The holidays give us permission to indulge in that as a lark. Yet whenever I get my chance, I think, "You know, I haven't had a good flavored tea in a while." Shouldn't I want more, given the things that I really want — the earth to stop warming, an end to political party carping, meaningful gun control legislation — aren't for sale?
The American way is consumerism. The holidays give us permission to indulge in that as a lark.
Why can't I just have a Honda Day to Remember or savor a gift that requires a huge-ass bow?
Holidays are a weak tonic for realists. Christmas is catnip for kids because it rolls up everything they adore — wishes, toys, talking to strangers — into a month of anticipation culminating in a climax of shredded wrapping paper and uncluttered joy.
To a child, there's a mythology to Christmas. If Santa can lap the world in one graveyard shift, anything is possible. That association lingers well into adulthood, providing a thematic aphrodisiac that allows Hallmark Channel preposterous cultural currency for six weeks every year.
What the Christmas list conundrum represents is an annual mourning of that yearly payload of magic, where one miraculous morning was guaranteed — and an appreciation for a new, wondrous phase in my life.
The Magic of Every Day
The biggest reason I can't write a Santa-worthy list is because every day teems with magic. The best stuff comes away from the culturally-enforced bonhomie of 24-hour yuletide playlists and twinkling lights, long after the never sweaty, always handsome Christmas tree farmer shares a toothbrush with the stunning, clear-eyed big city journalist who, most improbably, has never sweated a layoff in her life.
No day captures those moments that are too mundane for social media but crucial for building a wonderful life.
I try to savor those moments in the relentless blitz of bills and meal planning and schedules. My daughter grows comfortable with arithmetic during a board game. My parents become people as our experiences overlap and the need to erect facades diminishes. (Just having a relationship with them not centered around a crippling emotional war is a triumph.)
The best parts of marriage come in the long conversations in drab Mexican restaurants over congealing entrees and on saggy air mattresses in hastily prepared spare bedrooms. No day captures those moments that are too mundane for social media but crucial for building a wonderful life.
I'll gather those little moments when my mom's email comes this year and when the holiday arrives with an Amazon gift card and a shrug. Finally, on Christmas morning, as inky darkness dissolves and the ocular sting of a too early morning fades, I'll smell the cinnamon rolls in the oven and see our 7-year-old daughter happy to be with us. As the afterglow of commerce subsides, I'll again remember that Christmas has come early for years.
