A Contrast in Christmases

In one of my favorite episodes of The Office, back in season two when it was still funny, Michael Scott says something about Christmas that has always made me laugh because of its truth to me. He says,

"Presents are the best way to show someone how much you care. It is like this tangible thing that you can point to and say 'Hey man, I love you this many dollars-worth.'"

Silly as it is, I've always had a sort of anxiety about gift-giving because it seemed to me that I was never able to purchase a gift that was good enough for those I love. Money is always in short supply, it seems, right around the time that gifts are due. Whatever money I can scrounge up for a gift never seems adequate. I mean, really - "Hey friend, thanks for walking with me through that really bad breakup. Here's a $20 Barnes & Noble's gift card. Go read a book."

I digress. The point is, in past Christmases, presents have been very important to my family. Maybe because we're not as good at telling each other how much we love and treasure one another, we try, like Michael Scott, to somehow express our love by assigning it a dollar amount. And believe me, Christmases past have NOT been skimpy. I have been showered with gifts, money, gift cards, electronics, and the like.

This Christmas, however, was different. Times have been hard. Many of my family members are in the construction industry, or at least construction-related industries. This kind of work has all but dried up in Northwest Indiana, leaving so many of my family members with a significantly lower incomes. Because of this, my family agreed not to exchange gifts at our family gatherings.

So what had normally been a "presents extravaganza," with gifts piled higher than my grandma's four-foot LED-lit tabletop tree, with the kids panting in expectation of what gift they would open next, would have to be something else this year.

Without the distraction of presents, we had to INTERACT with one another. Gasp! Shock! Dismay! Instead of the focus being on presents, we played games together like Mafia, where, in true Studdard/Hendon family form, most people (including me) lost their voices attempting to compete with the volume level in the house (we're a loud bunch). We shared old memories of one another, as my sweet Aunt Barb gave everyone a jar labeled "I remember" that was filled to the brim with slips of paper of her memories of us. We looked through old photo albums, laughing at the haircuts and stone-washed jeans of yesteryear, yearning for the now-in-style maxi-dresses in pictures from the seventies, wondering in amazement at how much so-and-so looked like Uncle so-and-so, and reminiscing about the fun that we'd shared in all the seasons, not just the Christmas ones.

And it was the absolute best Christmas ever.

After we finished our family Christmas and headed home, we were excited to let my little niece open all of her gifts since she hadn't been with us earlier in the day. Even in the face of financial hardship, we had all set aside money to lavish her with gifts so that she wouldn't feel the affect of the economy in her Christmas. So she did have gifts piled high, waiting her under the tree. And as she went from gift to gift, eagerly tossing aside the gifts she had just opened to move on to bigger and better ones, I wondered, what are we trying to accomplish by the way we "do" Christmas?

I understand that the fathering heart of God pours gifts out to his children, gifts we don't deserve, gifts that we often toss aside after looking at for a few minutes, in exchange for want of another grander, better gift. And if God graciously gives his children gifts, then it only follows that parents, inherently flawed yet made in his likeness, would seek to bless their own children by giving them presents. But when we pile gifts high, allowing the kids to open them, look at them for a few short seconds, and then shoving another gift in front of them, saying "Open this one!" aren't we setting them up for ingratitude? Aren't we giving silent assent to an attitude that always is yearning for more, for what's next?

In my immaturity, I assumed that any Christmas that didn't look like the one full of presents wasn't really Christmas at all. But this December proved me wrong. Presents weren't needed to make this a true Christmas. Having them there may have distracted us from really loving on one another, from laughing together, from singing and playing and just being family.

For the sake of Christmases in the future, I hope that I remember this one. I hope that, whether it's a season of want or plenty, we as a family emphasize the love instead of the gifts, and are able to recreate what we experienced this year. It wasn't about assigning a dollar amount to our love, but it was about truly loving one another, and showing it through our time, attention, and interaction. And it was a real, true Christmas.