Both Oars In Christmas List

Dec 25, 2010

I haven’t made a Christmas list since Sears had a catalogue. I can still remember the toy section vividly.  Not one of the toys was electronic. They all required direct manual physical manipulation—not the swipe of mouse or thumbing of a button.  My list was all about those toys: action figures, Ping-Pong bazookas, and construction sets.

As I remember, those toys were better in anticipation than in hand. Imagining how fun it would be to play with them was the real charm of Christmas. This is must be why the catalogue was so popular. Each page created an opportunity to dream, to wonder what it would be like to have this or that. The catalogue and walks down long aisles of toys made Christmas a dreamy time.

I am too old for a list now. Three out of four of my children have even grown past the age of making a list. Instead, they drop verbal requests, not to be confused with hints, for things they believe they need. They make lists not of what they want, but of bullet points of why it makes sense to spend the $100 or $200, or more, on the latest piece of electronics they have requested.

Where is the charm in that? At least the youngest had the decency to write to Santa.

Before you send the Ghost of Christmas pasts to haunt me for being all “bah humbug,” let me be quick to say that there is still plenty of good cheer in the Christmas for me.  Let me also point out that I know that spiritually reliving the birth of Christ is the reason for the season, not eggnog and wrapped presents.

Yet, the anticipation of Christmas morning is a distinct psychological experience of my youth which I fear is missing from Christmas—not just for me, but generally. The old sentiment of going to bed in awe of the morning-to-come seems to have faded away to a more sophisticated and less personal experience of gift giving and receiving. I also note that people prefer to sleep in later than I remember as a kid and even want to do as an adult.

Christmas seems to have become something smaller, more efficient.  The plumes of scattered, balled-up wrapping paper have been replaced by neat gift cards. The three inch thick catalogues have been replaced by internet searches on razor thin hand-held apparatuses. And, Santa’s elves have been outsourced to strategically located warehouses around the world that can deliver “just-in-time” parcels. 

I wonder if the immediate gratification of buying on-line and the direct-to-the mind nature of today’s electronic toys have not cost us a bit of the dreamy anticipation of the Christmases of old.  Do sugarplum fairies even need to dance in our heads if our new 3D TV can make them appear to be dancing around the room for real?

For all of the heck my siblings and I give my mom for green pants and serial sweater giving, I do not believe I have been able to recreate for my children the sense of anticipation and intrigue with Christmas that my mom brought and still brings to Christmas with her willingness to spend hours wrapping everything and anything.  I think I look forward to Christmas at my parents more than my children do.  It takes me back to a time when there “twas a night before Christmas…”

So, today, I am going to take advantage of being “home” for Christmas. To build up great expectation for tomorrow, I am going to imagine everything that I could ever want for Christmas. I am going to put on a list and sleep on it.

I invite you to consider sitting down and doing the same. You can put on it a Daisy bb gun or world peace—anything that you can go to bed and dream about it arriving tomorrow.  For those inclined to really believe, you can place it by a plate of cookies by the tree. It is not too late to bring back the anticipation of Christmas—in fact, it the time.