Raising the bar each year with gifts can be a treacherous predicament only founded upon that first year to decide to lavishly give.
Christmas, I have come to realize, brings in an array of emotions. While my children anticipated opening gifts, I have come across those like me who, as a child, were quietly preparing to brace themselves for another year of just being together, no gift exchanges to anticipate.
My older siblings had fond memories of Christmas as children, confirmed upon hearing Papa reminisce dressing up as Santa for all the children around.
I recently listened and partially took into a conversation my cousin and husband had, recalling the blessings of my older siblings’ childhood. Although I can only recollect from pictures, my cousin happily and proudly admitted his best Christmas memories as a child were coming over to our house.
My beloved brother, John-John, was his closest kin of age and the two continued their strong bond even after years when John had followed him here to the United States.
How interesting to listen to one recall the memories of your family childhood, so recollectively different from your own, even though less than a decade apart.
Whether Papa intentionally had no presents for us or money was not right, all of that silence was fine at home where the secret stayed. However, returning back to school from break was a different story.
It didn’t matter which school I attended. The stories shared were the same following Christmas winter break. Students exchanged news about new clothes, toys, and gadgets they received from parents and family members.
I found myself sitting in silence, just listening. I had no story to share.
It would not be until our oldest brother was married where my sister and I would receive gifts again. Even John-John and his girlfriend, Liza, at the time, pitched in together one year to get us each something. (It would be the last Christmas to share with John-John.) It would be our third and youngest of three brothers who I recall even admitting to maxing out his credit card to buy us gifts along with our oldest and his wife always managing to do the same in the years to follow.
While Papa did not give us gifts here in America, he gave me what I didn’t realize in all those years something more priceless, humility. As a child, to feel a sense of let down is not what you ask for, but inadvertently, when given, many years later, you put aside the stings of the heart and understand. Humility was the very gift of strength I needed to possess, enabling me to always remember that of which I came from.
About a week ago, I came across a headline noting how this celebrity provided brand new cars for his twin daughters. I read nothing more. The headline could leave the imagination to understand the rest.
There may have been a time where I would have thought to do the same for our two daughters. With our youngest two boys now limited to just two to three reasonable gifts with an additional to share and a few fun items in their stockings, my husband and I have had what I would refer to as an eye-opening lesson as parents.
There is this one small elephant figurine that has been with us for nearly three decades. Our children may never deeply understand the significance of that elephant.
That white elephant symbolizes our very first Christmas together with our first child, our oldest son. I being in my first year of college and my husband finishing his Computer Science degree, to have a Marie Callender’s frozen berry pie to bake and a Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream was a rare, but good month to feel such privilege to splurge.
I distinctly remember that trip to the dollar store. We were going to get a gift for others and each other. It was my husband’s ingenious idea (I truly mean that- we could not have afforded giving otherwise).
I still see the smile my husband had on his face, exerting the energy as of a child at a toy store. He gave me a kiss and assured me the experience would be fun. I smiled back, reassuring him at my best in agreement. Silently, the movement about the aisles as I tried to keep an upbeat attitude and joyful spirit like my husband’s pinched my heart a painful way. I remember just wanting to give so much more. Still, like children, we laughed and giggled together as we selectively chose one gift for each person we could think of before privately choosing one special item for each other.
With our chins up, we gave those dollar gifts away. The elephant in our home stands as a reminder of where we have been, the strength and resilience we had from that day forth.
Soon, my husband’s degree provided us immediate financial growth, one year after another. The gift giving grew as continued blessings were given.
Although my husband may have seemed like the miser when we first started, it became clear in the years to follow he would be the one to shower our children with more than enough. By the time we bought our first home, playing the role of Santa clearly became my husband’s forte.
I would be wrapping gifts before Christmas only to have my husband examine all that we were to give to our children. He would excitedly say they weren’t enough. Soon, the presents doubled if not tripled in quantity.
There was always a part of me that wanted to tell my husband we were giving too much. All of a sudden, however, I would be reminded of those years as a child where I had nothing to receive. I easily surrendered to my husband’s endless zeal for giving our oldest three everything and anything we thought to be able to give them.
There can be nothing to regret in the memories of our oldest three being filled with awe and glee each gift they got to open. Their joy made up for all those years I returned to school from break in gift-less silence.
Hiccups happen, however. In Season Two of Dwayne Johnson’s show, Young Rock, (a time tribute for our youngest who says when he is twenty-one, he will be drinking Tequila- clearly, in all good humor, influenced by no other), his father is clearly depicted as a good man, a good father, who mentally and spiritually stood strong for his family. Having understood and experienced the evident hiccups Papa never openly admitted to, but clearly endured, I empathized with Rocky Johnson, Dwayne’s father. Men must see ahead, not momentarily.
As I have heard Steve Harvey suggest, “Women have a biological clock. Men have a financial clock.” Perhaps subconsciously passed on throughout time, even Psalms 144:4 states a similar understanding:
“Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.”
The silence in my husband one year as Christmas was nearing hinted to me that the year’s harvest was limited if not, to no discussion, scarce. Like Papa, like Rocky Johnson, my husband said nothing, just managing smiles here and there during our everyday conversations.
I remember that particular year, the night before Christmas, as the corner of my eye caught a piece of folded paper sticking out from a stocking. As I read it, my heart began to beat heavily to unwanted discovery. One of our daughters had changed her list and whether she had just put it in recently or not, there were things written she clearly would not find to open to in the early morning.
I remember my husband jumping up out of the couch, quick to his feet, the fastest he’d moved all that week.
“Let’s go right now!” He adamantly stated in the highest level of a whisper, not wanting to wake our already sleeping children in their rooms.
As my heart was silently breaking to first, have discovered the new list and second, to feel and see my husband’s urgency, and lastly, to know nothing could be done to avoid the foreseen train wreck we were about to endure, I looked at him with only courage to remind, “All stores are closed now, my love. It is late Christmas Eve.”
I never saw my husband look so defeated as he slumped back onto the couch. He laid himself down and said nothing more as I finished wrapping the rest of the gifts before we silently went off to bed.
That early morning was just like any other Christmas Day, waking to our oldest three children traditionally get up as early as they could manage to wake one another before running into our room, tugging on each of us to join them at the tree.
In all my years together with my husband, I never saw him get up and walk so slow to join our children. I must have looked just as resistant to do the same as I sat quietly by my children while my husband retreated back to that couch, returning right back to lying down in the same manner he just did a few hours back, this time, with one arm resting over his eyes.
With our oldest directing, each child took turns opening up their gifts. I will never forget the draining sounds of the joyful squeals. My husband never once looked our children’s way. He just continued to lie down in silence with that still one arm across his eyes.
There was clear, utter confusion before an eerie silence took over the room. That disappointment was far too familiar in my heart. While I recall that very same feeling having found not one present under the tree, my children might as well have experienced the same nullifying void.
In comparison to all their previous years of gift openings, that particular Christmas Day was far the lowest joyful and triumphant read on the radar scale.
Having not asked my husband that year if we were to add anymore (because in the years previous, with so much alacrity, he naturally always did), given the eventual silence from our children (this was only our three oldest at the time), I knew I blew my attempt to play Santa’s helper.
Looking at my husband as he continued to lay there on that couch, I braced myself from my own feelings of hurt. I could feel my husband’s deep and silent pain from across the room. We were like two children with a hidden secret, having telepathically vowed to say not a word.
Like the strong and resilient father he has always been, however, my husband broke the silence.
With his arm still across his eyes, still laying there on that couch, he wittingly, but sorely declared, “We will go and get one thing each of you wanted but did not get as soon as the stores are open.”
One of our daughters ran over to him and exclaimed, “Thank you, Daddy! You saved Christmas!”
As his wife and mother to our children, I knew he would have said “anything” instead of just “one thing” any other year.
To our oldest three children’s unknowing innocence, however, they will never know that while my husband did seemingly manage to return smiles back to normal following that bleak of a Christmas morning, we’ve had to carry that void since.
I remember my darkest Christmas. Papa, Mama, my older sister and I sat on this handed-down couch, in this lack of sunlight basement where we had been residing, watching and listening to our two older brothers as they took turns entertaining us with jokes and stories. We managed to laugh and feel the joy of Christmas. I remember I dared not question if we were to receive any gifts under the tree. There was no Christmas tree for us that year.
Our youngest two exclaim with overt joy opening up the two or three gifts they receive. With a new rule that they must write out two to three things they would like for Christmas by Thanksgiving, we at least have improved in avoiding last-minute Santa requests.
Hard to believe that with just two to three (we added reasonable, too) gifts, our youngest two act as if they have more than what they could ever ask for in the days to follow of receiving and opening gifts.
While having only wanted for my children to never understand the feeling of void, it is that very emptiness that has given me the true understanding of strength and endurance. Humility at its finest happens under the greatest discomforts and quiet disappointments.
I am always reminded of the feeling to have done without. It is never a feeling desired to return to. It is that very feeling to help me appreciate where we have arrived to, one moment at a time.
Was Papa right in not giving us gifts? It didn’t feel like it as a child. Was my husband unsuccessful to meet Christmas demands of our children at times? It seemed that would be so. Did either fail in being the best they could be under situations they found themselves in?
As Bruno in Young Rock nicely pointed out when Dwayne Johnson’s dad, Rocky, had lied to his wife about having a place of their own to stay, “Your dad is a good man.”
Whether it be Christmas evening, day, or any day, having a father who tries and keeps trying is more than any gift could provide.
