The 2007 Holidays, Part II

(Christmas)

Truth: The anticipation of something is sometimes even better than the actual thing.
Counterpoint: This Christmas.
Once in a while, when I was younger - though not too much younger - I found the actual day of Christmas to be a slight let down when compared with the month preceding it. I think this is because Christmas is so often measured by the very American ideal of 'getting'. "What did you get?" we ask each other on Christmas Day phone calls, as if it was the pinnacle, the culmination of the weeks of waiting and hoping. And for a while, I guess it is - I remember (easily) ripping into my presents, the sheer joy of getting each gift outweighed only by the sheer joy of looking down and realizing that there were more gifts.
And that was Christmas.
I don't know where the change started, but I know when it became acute; last year, at Christmas time. For the first time in my life, I had money to spend, more than I had ever had (by far) to spend on Christmas gifts. And spend I did. I gave everyone nicer gifts, gave gifts to more people, and sometimes gave two or three gifts, when appropriate. And in doing so, a funny thing happened.
I liked it.
I liked it more than getting them. Oh, I still threw a stiff arm to bar off my sisters from getting down the stairs while boxing out my brother (tradition is tradition), but I didn't rip into my gifts and tear them limb from limb. It was a great Christmas from a gift standpoint, I'm sure, but I don't really remember what I got. What I remember was the looks on Mom and Dad's faces when they received their gifts, when Grandmother received hers, how much Mike liked his. how much he said he loved it.
I remember that.
Come this year, I couldn't wait not just to get gifts, but to give them. I looked forward to it more than almost any year before. Strangely, though, the situations were different; this time, I had just made major payments to my student loans, had a car and a rent payment, and had the Waitress get her first full checkup (with four brand-new tires).... all of which ate into my budget. I may have spent approcaching what I did the year before, but it took damn near every cent I had left to pull it off.
And I was proud of that.
I sat, this Christmas day, opening my gifts with uncharacteristic slowness, appreciating not what was left, but what I had in my hands. I thought about the thought that went into each gift, the surprising insight and love that goes into giving a gift to another for no other reason than to express the appreciation another person had for me. And what is that, if not the idea of Christ? "Love one another", Jesus says, "as you would love yourself."
It is a great commandment.

I could list the gifts I received this year, the funny and the serious - a Penguins desk clock, a Shaggy chia pet, a book on the New Zealand locations used for the Lord of the Rings. But more important to me was the thought that went into the gifts - the captain shirt from Dave, for dodgeball; the offense-defense gloves from Nate, for Sunday Morning Football; the writing pen, from my Dad, that records what I scribble electronically.

As I sit here, it is barely the middle of January, and I already long to return the favor.
New Year's resolutions? I want to save my money this year - with my new loan arrangements and better financial flow, it shouldn't be hard - and blow people away with presents. Birthdays. Anniversaries. For no reason at all. The money isn't important; the thought should be, and the work, and I want to be able to do it for everyone.

And when Christmas comes once more, I will be ready.