The gift of giving up

“Don’t forget to ask the kids what they want for Christmas!”

I hear this every year starting around November 3rd, the request from my mother for gift ideas for my two sons. Every November 3rd I give the speech I call, “We are a quality over quanity family”. Every year she protests with, “but it’s Christmas!” And so we go around and around until I capitulate right around December 10th and update the Amazon wishlist with toys I pick out for them. Maybe I let them add one or two non-battery operated toys. Because I know best. I’m their mom!

I know, I’m a bad mom with no sense of fun. I know! But you know what else I know? My kids are happy and spoiled. Thank you very much. I don’t spoil them with toys and plastic junk (most of the time). I spoil them with lots of play, hikes in the woods, hugs and apple pie for breakfast. You know the stuff that actually matters.

So yeah, I’m not of the mind that the more presents under the tree equals more holiday cheer or childhood glee. I’m of the mind that celebrating family traditions like Daddy’s famous cinnamon buns on Christmas morning and playing cards on Christmas Eve are what matters.

Just so you know, I splurge on Lego advent calendars. So I’m not a total Scrooge. But maybe that’s more to do with the fact that we only ever had the crappy chocolate advent calendars from the drug store. But I digress…..

Today I decided to stop the madness. I decided to let my kids make a list of presents that will include all manner of ridiculous junk they saw between episodes of Spongebob and Teen Titans Go. Which will no doubt include the snowball maker that I declared a “stupid piece of plastic junk” the first 5 times they asked for it. I decided that my mother wants to “spoil” them her way. And I’m never going to win. I’m never going to change her 70-something year old mind and she is never going to change mine. So I’m letting it all go. I win nothing by being right. Not a damn thing.

Christmas isn’t going to be merrier because there are more OR less presents under the tree.

Our family experienced so much loss last year. Within three months my brother and my father died. Last Christmas was dreadful for me. I barely made it through. And how my poor mother did, I’ll never know. My brother’s absence was like a blackhole in my house. We could try to ignore it but everything just got sucked into our grief. Last Christmas, I tried to buck up and focus on my kids as much as I could muster, which wasn’t that much really. I didn’t even manage to get them matching Christmas pajamas, which I still regret.

I drank a lot of bourbon.

So this year I’m letting go and letting Christmas be about whatever anybody wants Christmas to be about. I’m giving my mom the best gift I have to give: I’m going shut the fuck up about the kids’ presents. And I’m going to try so damn hard to keep my mouth shut about everything else too. Even when she comments on the dust in the livingroom or scolds me for saying “goddamn” in my own (goddamn) house.

Ok, I’m going to try really hard. No promises.

It’s the thought that counts, right?

My mother should write Briana Morgan a thank you note because her piece Be a better person in one step was the catalyst to this decision.