Ah, Christmas. It's only two months away people. Can you feel the anxiety starting? Have you started saving? Already scoping out Christmas gifts and worrying if you'll have to take out a second mortgage?
I mean, are you super excited to be spending time with family and friends and celebrating the joys of the season?
There is a viral Facebook post that has been circulation for a few years now. regarding modesty with Christmas gifts. I saw it again the other day and it caught my attention. Here it is:
"Just a reminder to all you parents out there to be modest with your gifts from "Santa". Not all parents have a ton of cash to spend on making their kids Christmas special, so it doesn't make sense to have Santa give your kids a PlayStation4, a bike, and an iPad, while his best friend at school gets a new hat and mittens from Santa. You know? Give something small from Santa and make the more expensive presents from you. You can explain the value of money to kids, but you can't explain Santa's discrimination to a heartbroken kid. Keep that in mind this year and always..."
Ugh. I have so many thoughts on this I just had to sit and stew for a few days. I believe the intention in this is good. The mark is completely missed, however, and here's why.
First, don't remind me to be modest with gifts from Santa. Modesty is subjective, and if how much I spend on gifts really bothers someone, that is their problem and not mine. Frankly, it's no one's business what is or isn't spent on gifts. If you want to judge another parent for giving their kid an "expensive" electronic, just remember that you're the one doing the judging.
The amount of cash dropped on Christmas does not directly correlate to how special Christmas is. Therefore, it does make sense to give your child whatever gift you deem appropriate because the highlight of Christmas shouldn't be the gifts. You know?
If my child goes to school with his new toy and sees that his best friend got a hat and mittens and then proceeds to judge said friend, I'm failing as a parent. Here's the thing about kids: they're kids. They don't automatically know this stuff. We teach it to them. We teach them to judge each other based on material possessions. We teach them the monetary value of things and to think differently about people that have less expensive items. Santa doesn't do that. We do.
How exactly is giving the expensive presents from the parents and not from Santa making a difference? When my children get to a certain age, they will know that "Santa" is
really not a person and then I'll have to explain to them that I didn't
want them to feel bad for the neighbor kids so I gave him expensive
presents anyway... wait... let me try that again. I didn't want them to
think Santa was a discriminating asshat so I took his place... hold
on... I think I can get it this time... The gifts were too nice to be
from Santa so I wanted all the credit... wait... that's not right
either...
Stating that Santa discriminates against kids based on the gifts he hands out is the coward's way out. Again, one day, the kids will know that Santa was actually mom and dad. If my child comes home and is upset because Jimmy got something really cool from Santa and all he got was this lousy gift, I would first take away that lousy gift and preach a little about being thankful. Then I would teach my son the dangers of comparing himself to others.
I also explain the value of money to my children, just not at Christmas. There are far better times to teach this valuable lesson. For example, when we're at the grocery store and he wants the name brand cereal but the store brand cereal is an entire $2.50 cheaper. That's a great time to explain the value of money. I don't want to put a price tag on their gifts because then they learn to think in terms of money and equate happiness to a price.
Instead, I'd like to take that time to teach my children how to be grateful and thankful for what they have. I'd like to teach them how to value their possessions, not because it was an expensive gift from Santa, but because it was a gift that was purchased with his happiness in mind. It was given to him because someone else was thinking of him. The cool thing about that lesson is that it applies to both iPads and underwear. I want my children to be thankful for the action figure toy they wanted as much as for the hat and gloves they needed.
When my children think of Christmas, I don't want their entire holiday hinging on what Santa will bring. Yes, that's part of the fun and yes, they should be excited. But when they're older and think of Christmas, I don't want them to remember it in the form of "that was the year I got this." I want them to remember the smell of Gram's house, sledding down the hill, hearing the sounds of family and friends laughing and having a great time together. I want them to remember Christmas, not gifts.
I get the intention of this post, I really do. However, I think it's things like this that is creating a generation of people that are offended by everything. Why should I be offended or upset or have any feelings at all towards what other people have? I shouldn't, and neither should our kids.
This is a 1959 John Steinbeck Letter to Adlai Stevenson [Published in “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction” – first published in 2002] which is worth reading (Stevenson was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1952 and 1956):
ReplyDeleteNew York
1959
Guy Fawkes Day
Dear Adlai,
Back from Camelot, and, reading the papers, not at all sure it was wise. Two first impressions. First, a creeping, all pervading nerve-gas of immorality which starts in the nursery and does not stop before it reaches the highest offices both corporate and governmental. Two, a nervous restlessness, a hunger, a thirst, a yearning for something unknown—perhaps morality. Then there's the violence, cruelty and hypocrisy symptomatic of a people which has too much, and last, the surly ill-temper which only shows up in humans when they are frightened.
Adlai, do you remember two kinds of Christmases? There is one kind in a house where there is little and a present represents not only love but sacrifice. The one single package is opened with a kind of slow wonder, almost reverence. Once I gave my youngest boy, who loves all living things, a dwarf, peach-faced parrot for Christmas. He removed the paper and then retreated a little shyly and looked at the little bird for a long time. And finally he said in a whisper, "Now who would have ever thought that I would have a peach-faced parrot?"
Then there is the other kind of Christmas with presents piled high, the gifts of guilty parents as bribes because they have nothing else to give. The wrappings are ripped off and the presents thrown down and at the end the child says—"Is that all?" Well, it seems to me that America now is like that second kind of Christmas. Having too many THINGS they spend their hours and money on the couch searching for a soul. A strange species we are. We can stand anything God and nature can throw at us save only plenty. If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick. And then I think of our "Daily" in Somerset, who served your lunch. She made a teddy bear with her own hands for our grandchild. Made it out of an old bath towel dyed brown and it is beautiful. She said, "Sometimes when I have a bit of rabbit fur, they come out lovelier." Now there is a present. And that obviously male teddy bear is going to be called for all time MIZ Hicks.
When I left Bruton, I checked out with Officer 'Arris, the lone policeman who kept the peace in five villages, unarmed and on a bicycle. He had been very kind to us and I took him a bottle of Bourbon whiskey. But I felt it necessary to say—"It's a touch of Christmas cheer, officer, and you can't consider it a bribe because I don't want anything and I am going away..." He blushed and said, "Thank you, sir, but there was no need." To which I replied—"If there had been, I would not have brought it."
Mainly, Adlai, I am troubled by the cynical immorality of my country. I do not think it can survive on this basis and unless some kind of catastrophe strikes us, we are lost. But by our very attitudes we are drawing catastrophe to ourselves. What we have beaten in nature, we cannot conquer in ourselves.
Someone has to reinspect our system and that soon. We can't expect to raise our children to be good and honorable men when the city, the state, the government, the corporations all offer higher rewards for chicanery and deceit than probity and truth. On all levels it is rigged, Adlai. Maybe nothing can be done about it, but I am stupid enough and naively hopeful enough to want to try. How about you?
Yours,
John