The Christmas gift that made me cry

By the grace of Amazon, we’ve come out on the other side of Christmas once again. I don’t know about you, but I’m in the phase where I’m freebasing sucrose, on a strict diet of stale sugar cookies and Emergen-C®.

The day of giving is still close enough that, when you run into people, the first thing they ask is, “Did you have a nice Christmas?” And my answer is, of course we did! This is because, much like the agonizing process that brought our children into the world, against all odds, mothers everywhere have already magically shed the angst from the relentless grind of merry-making we disproportionally shoulder. We can look our friends and co-workers in the eyes and actually mean it when we wax poetic about the joy and looks on their sweet faces as they ripped into package after package, all of us concussed by the charm of their fleeting gratitude.

Gone are the tears from back-breaking gift wrapping sessions crammed into playdate windows. Banished are the pangs of disgust over jarring grocery receipts and factoring peanut allergies into holiday party treats and rolling the dice on first-time dishes for family gatherings. Tallying who got what and elves who didn’t move and empty tape dispensers and White Elephants and Secret Santas and “Oh, Mom, I forgot …”s, all pests of the past now.

Shifting from stuff

Particularly in recent years, we’ve focused on experiences over things, in an attempt to open the girls’ eyes to the gifts you can’t wrap–the vibration of live music, the vastness of mountain summits and coastal shores. The transition has rejuvenated my commitment to Christmas.

While no one appreciates the magical anticipation unique to Santa’s light more than me, I also try to emphasize the benevolent buzz of giving over the fleeting, materialistic high of getting. One of my favorite traditions, and I’m confident the chicks would agree, is our annual Day-o-Treats.

We spend a few nights creating confections, varying combinations of nuts and melted chocolate and butterscotch. We blast my expertly curated Christmas playlist and lean into the mess and marathon of dipping, freezing and packaging. “It’s totally worth it,” JoJo will remind me at least a few times, as I scrape dried candy coating cocoa off the countertops and rotate parchment paper-lined pans in the garage.

Then, typically on the first day of Christmas Break, we load up boxes of sweets, blast the same jolly Dolly-heavy playlist and drive around surprising friends with boxes of holiday treats. I let the chicks choose our targets. This year, it took us from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. to hit all the houses. (And Santa covers the whole world in one night!)

As we pulled out of the last driveway and through the neighborhood ablaze in light displays, the timers ticked on in the early darkness of winter, I sighed, exhausted. “Totally worth it,” JoJo reminded me again. And I saw a flash–one I see quite often these days–of my oldest girl inching toward a maturity I’ve long fostered and feared. With every passing Christmas, she helps more, and gets lost in less. It’s a transition as expected and heart-breaking as any cruel side effect of aging children.

The gift that made me cry

Somewhere toward the end of our predawn Christmas unboxing, my JoJo passed me a handmade gift. “It’s from me and Spike,” she said. It was a large glass jar, draped in a soft flannel fabric, tied closed with twine and a tag that read:

“Here’s a jar of compliments to bring you light when the sun refuses to shine, to settle the sea when it continues to rage, and to remind you how amazing you are when no one else will. Love you!”

I made it to “shine” before the tears came. Maybe it was the lingering effects of seasonal stress which, let’s face it, siphons the life out of you, or exhaustion or my own baited expectations for the day. Maybe it was such how sweet it was. But the thoughtful words and generous gesture made my cocoa mug runneth over.

What the jar really means to me

Instinctually, my first reaction was guilt. I hated the thought that I’d failed to mask my anxiety or shield them from my stress. But in the lazy haze of the nameless days that fall between December 25 and the New Year, I remembered the words of the social science goddess Brene Brown, who constructed the parenting manifesto I have framed on my dresser (mentioned in JoJo and the Case of the First Grade Burdens).

Among other expertly crafted words, it says:

“We will practice courage in our family by showing up, letting ourselves be seen, and honoring vulnerability. We will share our stories of struggle and strength. There will always be room in our home for both.
We will teach you compassion by practicing compassion with ourselves first; then with each other. We will set and respect boundaries; we will honor hard work, hope, and perseverance. Rest and play will be family values, as well as family practices.”

I was reminded of why I framed the pledge in the first place; not only as a north star for me, but also as a visible promise to my girls. Something they could see in plain print. Picking up the framed words helped me shed the guilt and savor the simple beauty of their present.

The handmade gift–the fact that they took the time to fill the container with words of hope and encouragement–isn’t a symptom of their front row seats to my struggles. It’s a symbol that we are raising humans who see people. Who see me. And I love that. I need that.

As parents, more days than not, it feels like we’re just screaming corrections and commands into the wind.

Put your laundry away.

Turn off the screen.

Don’t laugh at words said at someone else’s expense.

Stand up for what’s right.

Stand tall in who you are.

Go high.

Be kind.

Pitch in.

Pick up.

Seize the sunshine.

From the moment they arrive, we start shaping and molding and instructing. And it’s hard to tell if any of it is sticking. So to get this wink of empathy from the two who will take on the world first, feels pretty incredible. And thus, the tears.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, keep going, parents. It’s working.

Happy New Year!