This season called Advent is all about various kinds of expectations. The kids expect Santa to show up, merchants expect us to go overboard with shopping, families expect us to visit, and be nice to each other, and some of us expect to be lonely. None of this is what Advent is really for. These weeks leading to the holiday are meant to be a time to ponder whether the Holy birth affects our daily lives.
My mom taught me to savor small pleasures; that half the fun was looking forward to something special, but when the event arrived it should be fully experienced and then tucked away in memory, to be enjoyed in moments of leisure. Advent is a perfect example of this.
Like all kids, I looked forward to presents, but I also was entranced by the preparations; watching Grandma put up paper decorations to be enjoyed by family when they gathered for dinner, seeing a small string of colored lights on main street in the village of Seneca, and climbing the hill behind our house with Dad, to cut a pine branch for our tree. (He’d hand planted and carried water to those trees; he’d never have cut one down.)
Back then, we didn’t necessarily have all we wanted, but we sure enough wanted all we had. When extras came our way, we rejoiced wholeheartedly. Nowadays, most of us have too many extras, and fail to appreciate necessities.
Gene gave me a doll for Christmas when I was six or seven. To this day, I can see her dark, painted curls, and blue eyes that opened and closed in her china face. Other people had given me dolls, probably in an effort to civilize me somewhat. Usually, they didn’t even get the new worn off, but I played with this one because I had liked Gene, a young hay hand from the previous summer. I don’t know his last name, or where he was from, and I never saw him again. The gentle teasing and attention he gave to a shy little girl with no playmates keeps me remembering him, but the doll symbolized his remembrance of me.
What’s on your wish list this year? You probably already have more do-dads and trinkets than you know what to do with, and what you really want isn’t likely to turn up under the tree. Enough money to last to the end of the month. A job, a car that runs, your sister not to have cancer. Your kids to have a dad who comes home nights. So, you say, “I don’t need a thing. Christmas is for kids, and I’m concentrating on them.”
Sorry. “Nothing” isn’t an option. In the first place, most of us have families that won’t accept that answer. So, ask for a weekly phone call, a day with the grandkids, a scrapbook of family highlights, or help with the dishes on week nights.
In the other place, this season is contagious. Even the grinchy ones will catch themselves wishing someone a happy holiday, laughing with a child, humming Silent Night, or putting out a tongue to taste a snowflake.
You’ll get the same gift you have received every year of your life. Memories. Savor the good ones, ignore the sad ones, and be sure to let someone know that your memories of them are special. Gene did it, and his gift is still like brand new, after three quarters of a century.