As I sunk into the couch after a heavy Thanksgiving dinner, my eyelids heavy and unable to concentrate on the one-sided NFL offering, the family elders gathered mischievously over their wine glasses in the kitchen, scheming to end Christmas as I know it.
With the youngest of my cousins now entering high school, the extended family gift-giving regimen had lost the wild-, eyed, wrapping paper tearing frenzy of Christmas pass.
Gone were deafening squeals of glee; these days, it was a polite “thank you”, and smile. Maybe it’s the guilt of being the oldest of the seven, and still receiving quite a haul, but I worried that if I wasn’t the adorable, toy-hungry picture of gratitude, I wasn’t doing enough to earn those presents.
So when the new plan was rolled-out, I took it in stride. Pretending to understand the current economic downturn helped me drum up sympathy for aunts and uncles who had to purchase six of everything to work through the Christmas list.
A similar desire to reassess Christmas had been stirring inside me for a while. Well beyond the age of yearning desperately for the year’s hot gift, I had – to my own shock and disgust – learned to appreciate the practical.
When a particularly weighty gift under last year’s tree turned out to be a pair of jumper cables, I remember a strange new sense of appreciation for something I actually needed.
My friends were not going to want to come over to play with my new Bean boots or car accessories, but they also wouldn’t lose pieces, or my interest, like the gizmo’s and fads of previous holidays.
The decision seemed to mark an important maturation, both in our age, and way of thinking. For a busy family who rarely can coordinate schedules to arrange gatherings, just seeing each other around the holidays a treat in itself.
This might all seem candy-cane sickly sweet, but not having to spend money to show someone your appreciation is a refreshing change, and one that firmly separates matters of the heart from those of the wallet. Despite what the commercial onslaught between now and late December might lead you to believe, we don’t just have to rely on the retailers of the world to express ourselves.
I love Thanksgiving, a holiday that brings people together for the sole purpose of eating unnatural amounts of food. Without anything to sell outside of turkeys and explosive deep fryers, advertisers largely ignore our annual feast. Instead, they wait until the second it is over, and then hit the giant Christmas countdown clock, inciting a wave of consumerism that does not break until the stocking are hung by the chimney with care.
If we continue to allow the holidays to be co-opted by companies, and we use our credit cards to spread season’s greetings, than one day they might just move Christmas Eve mass to the mall food court so that we can finish our shopping, and pop out for fro-yo or a coffee if the sermon runs long.
I am glad that I can now define my holiday experience outside the realm of shiny wrapping paper, and begin to decide what the holidays mean to me without any suggestions from those who seek to liberate the dollar bills from my wallet.
Thank you for reading,
Matt Dodge