Christmas traditions
Most every family that celebrates Christmas has its own Christmas traditions. This year Emma has been letting one of ours out of the bag. For a long time now, she has been introducing herself to people. Once she was the size that she looked like she would be in kindergarten, it usually boiled down to:
“My name is Emma. I’m {age}. I’m homeschooled. Mommy’s my teacher.”
It took a while before it occurred to me that she was answering the questions most adults who didn’t know her, asked her if they conversed with her. For the last month or so she has been adding the following to her introduction:
“My Daddy is my Santa.”
I would say the majority of adults she’s said that to don’t know how to respond. I’ve had a few looks which suggested that I had commited a severe injustice. Others, though, have been a little more understanding. One lady after having a bit of time to absorb it did say, “I suppose, that’s the best sort of Santa to have.” This week, while out grocery shopping she added, to one lady:
“Maybe my Daddy will bring you presents, too.”
Over the years, I’ve run into adults who remember Christmas primarily from when they were a child. And, it seems to an extent, that Christmas as an adult brought them little joy or happiness. I’m not that way. I said to Andrea tonight, “This is the best Christmas ever.” She promptly replied, “You say that every year.” And she’s right. I do say that every year and I’m not making it up. On Christmas morning, I’ll be in a room full of people whose whose main goal there is to make every other person in the room happy. In my experience, that doesn’t happen very often.
While sitting here thinking of what to talk about next, I realized that over the years we have parted from what I perceive the traditional Christmas to be quite alot. For example, starting at age 2, I would take the children out and let them pick out gifts for the rest of the family. One year that turned into Andrea opening a wrapped box that contained a can of peas. I fear, that for many children in our society, they have become the object of Christmas. Christmas is a product that gets delivered to them and their role in it all is limited to Christmas morning. If that was their childhood Christmas, it is no wonder that being the person who creates the product sees no joy in it.
For my children, Christmas has been a process. I can guarantee you that all of the older children have spent far more time in the last year thinking about what they were going to give everyone else than they did thinking about what they might get.
But, I really haven’t told you the story behind what Emma has been telling people recently. Before her third Christmas, I asked the older three if they wanted us to teach her about Santa. They unanimously said no. And we haven’t. At the time I also proposed an alternative way of having stockings filled for Christmas morning. So, we largely left it to Emma to draw her own conclusions. The irony that came along 2 years ago was that Emma asked me to get a Santa suit and be Santa.
When it got close to Christmas, Andrea and I picked up a Santa suit. On Christmas Eve, I went upstairs and got suited up, went into the attic. I then closed the door loudly and stomped my way down stairs. I had a gift for each person to open in my sack, plus I got Emma to help me put a gift in each stocking. Then I went back upstairs and took off the suit. Throughout the whole thing Emma called me Santa and corrected someone who mistakenly called me Dad. But the glint in her eye and the smile on her face betrayed that she knew she was taking part in pretense. When I came back down stairs as me, she excitedly told me the whole story of Santa being there.
This year, she has already asked me to do it again. And, of course, I will.
We hope you have a truly Merry Christmas (Ho Ho Ho).
