Light Sabers and Tears in Aisle 8

Posted on December 8, 2015 by CNF • Posted in Blog, Featured Blog Posts • Tagged Allison Slater Tate, children and childhood, Christmas, Christmas gifts, emotions, family, gifts, holiday gifts, motherhood, passage of time • Leave a comment

By Allison Slater Tate

I am missing the little boys who believed in reindeer food on the front lawn.

I cried in the Star Wars aisle of Toys ‘R’ Us at 10 a.m. this morning.

In a rare show of industry, I was trying to knock out the majority of my Christmas shopping in just one (painfully expensive) trip. With my four children all safely ensconced at their respective schools from middle down to preschool, I took my sweet time pushing my cart through the giant toy mecca, pausing at each aisle, carefully picking out candy canes and wands for stockings.

It felt indulgent and strange to actually give myself the permission to shop leisurely instead of bum-rushing my way through an online order—or, more likely, five online orders. I enjoyed picking up the toys and reading the boxes the way I obsessively did when I was a child; though I find the whole “unboxing” phenomenon on YouTube a little jarring, I understand why my 3-year-old daughter enjoys watching others open and play with toys so much, since it reminds me of how I was riveted to the Saturday morning commercials at her age.

I had made it through most of the store, and my cart was piled high with things for my youngest, who is my only girl—Calico Critters and Beanie Boos, Breyer horses and Strawberry Shortcake dolls, Paw Patrol figures and a Play-Doh kitchen I know she will squeal over—when I found myself in the Star Wars aisle. I was suddenly staring at a pile of lightsabers, red and green and blue.

Like a blurry video in fast forward, years flashed through my mind: all the other Decembers when I had walked through these same aisles, picking up Little People farms and Hexbugs, Hot Wheels tracks and Razor scooters. I remembered running my hands over heavy plastic playhouses, debating between massive Lego sets, searching for Thomas trains we didn’t yet own. I thought about 12 years of Christmas mornings, oranges in stockings, tiny, sticky candy cane fingers, nights of driving around neighborhoods with the radio station set to the Christmas music channel, the kids in their pajamas staring out the windows and admiring our neighbors’ handiwork. They were always ready to go home before I was.

And that’s when, for a few minutes, I just leaned against my shopping cart and let myself cry, right in the middle of Toys ‘R’ Us, amidst the Yodas and the Ewok dolls—not an ugly cry, not heaving sobs, but just a few tears—as I realized that those days, when I had little people constantly underfoot and Santa was definitely real in my house, are over. My oldest boys have grown out of toy stores altogether now. They’re not even that interested in the video games sold there; they now look to download more sophisticated computer games straight from the source. My 8-year-old, whether because of his personality, because he is a third boy and jaded by the knowledge he’s acquired through his brothers, or because 8-year-old boys are now somewhat more savvy and less into toys than they were in generations past, barely plays with traditional toys at all. And after a recent brutal grilling by the third grader, I am pretty sure the 3-year-old is the only one left who truly believes in Santa Claus.

So I cried, because I miss those little boys who so carefully placed the plate of cookies and glass of milk by our fireplace chimney and brought home sacks of be-glittered handprint ornaments from preschool and kindergarten. But in truth, I cried more because I miss those days that I used to just survive, and then only barely. I miss when my days were just chaotic blurs, ping-ponging through naps and playgroup meet-ups and hurtling toward bedtime every night. I miss them because now, through the magnifying glass of hindsight and the rose-colored lens of nostalgia, they seem so much simpler, even in their tedium.

My days have a different timbre now. No one wears diapers, no one drinks from sippy cups with a bazillion parts to clean. There are no naptimes to work around. Instead, there is homework and practices and school. My little girl still keeps me with one foot partly in the world of the toddler; she is my excuse for knowing what’s popular on Disney Junior, my reason for collecting picture books and acorns from the yard. But things have changed.

I am mourning the Christmas tasks I had just a few years ago. I am missing the little boys who believed in reindeer food on the front lawn. But even more, I mourn their mother—the younger version of me, who was able to immerse myself in the physical labor and emotional chaos of young motherhood, whose parents were still strong and hearty and not yet concerned with the trickiness of retirement and aging, who didn’t worry about puberty and high school transcripts. I miss the version of me who could spend naptimes baking dozens of Christmas cookies and whose biggest worry was making it to the preschool Christmas concert on time.

One of my friends often quotes George Bernard Shaw: “You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you have lost something.” As my children grow up and out of the routines and rites of childhood, I learn with them. I learn what each new stage means for them and for me as a parent, what the view from here now looks like and feels like. Yes, at first, it feels like I have lost something. I miss something. I mourn something. But even as I wipe a few tears off my cheeks, I know that this Christmas, when we are all piled around the tree again in our pajamas and bare feet—the bigger kids with smaller, fewer, and yet more expensive packages, the youngest with a plethora of tiny treasures to delight a preschooler’s big eyes—I won’t miss anything. Everything will be there, in new shapes and sizes: all the pieces of my heart.

Allison Slater Tate is a freelance writer and editor and a mother of four children ages 13 to 3. In addition to Brain, Child, her work can be found at her eponymous website, Today Parents, Scary Mommy, the Washington Post, the Princeton Alumni Weekly, and the Huffington Post, among others. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Batter Up

Posted on October 16, 2015 by CNF • Posted in Blog, Featured Blog Posts • Tagged Amy Yelin, baseball, Christmas gift, family, gifts, motherhood, Red Sox • Leave a comment

By Amy Yelin

My son Ethan stands with his arms crossed while listening to retired Red Sox legend Nomar Garciparra. My husband and I huddle a few feet away, watching while attempting to read lips and interpret body language. There is a battle of wills going on, and it’s tough to tell who’s winning.

Less than a month before, I’d gifted my two boys, seven-year-old Ethan and six-year-old Jonas, this baseball clinic in Foxboro, Mass. as a Christmas surprise. Looking back, I should have recognized this was a risky choice for a present. But I was on a mission that holiday season to enrich our lives by gifting experiences, rather than toys—a gut-level change inspired by my recent breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. As the holidays approached, I announced we’d do less materialism and more memory making this year and everyone—my husband and two boys and ALL OF HUMANITY DAMN IT— would be the better for it.

Right around that time I received an email promoting the baseball clinic. I immediately thought Whoa. The boys love baseball. And on the heels of the Red Sox World Series win in 2013, what could be a better gift than a baseball clinic with second baseman Dustin Pedroia?

That’s not a typo. I’d misread, or my lingering chemobrain was confused by both names ending in “a.” It was a mistake I realized only after I’d made my purchase, unfortunately.

I casually asked the boys at dinner one evening if they’d ever heard of Nomar Garciaparra.

They both said no.

The question then became how to both present this gift to them while educating them at the same time. I searched for a Nomar action figure on Amazon and immediately ordered it. I also printed out an information sheet on Mr. Garciaparra. I put it all in a nice bag with tissue paper and felt proud of myself for not feeding the materialistic monster this year.

Until 5 am Christmas morning. That’s when I woke up in a panic. Without the tangible toy gifts, the area under the tree looked barren compared to the year before. What did I do? I worried. But then I consoled myself: they’re going to love the baseball clinic. You did the right thing. It’s a former Red Sox. What could be bad about it?

That morning, they grabbed the bag with their gift, pulled everything out and looked confused.

“What is this?” Ethan asked. It dawned on me at that moment that no child has ever dreamed about reading a printout from the Internet on Christmas morning. Nor is it very fun to have to have your gift explained to you in detail, which I had to do. More than once. And no one touched the action figure.

“You’re going to love the baseball clinic!” I assured them, but they quickly moved on, looking for more. For “better” of which, there wasn’t much.

Several times that day I heard my younger son ask his brother, “What was our big present again?”

“The baseball thing, I guess.”

After Christmas, no one brought it up again, and despite my best attempts to get them excited via their new action figure, no one paid any attention to Nomar.

On the day of the clinic, there were a few hundred kids present. Certainly more than I’d expected. The boys were split up into different groups according to age. I knew Ethan, my more anxious child, was overwhelmed because he kept sneaking off to the men’s room and hibernating there. “Maybe you should check on him,” I said to my husband, and he did, but it wasn’t easy to get Ethan to come back out. Eventually he did, but he snuck off to the bathroom several more times for a break.

Nomar didn’t make an appearance until noon. He arrived in a grey hoodie and sweatpants (looking little like his well-groomed action figure). He gave a pep talk to all the boys, some of which was garbled due to either the sound system or the gym acoustics. After the pep talk, it was time to move from fielding exercises in the gym to the batting cages.

“Isn’t this fun?” I asked Ethan as we started walking toward the batting cages.

“No,” he said. He stopped and leaned on a wall while his group kept walking. “What are you doing?” I said. “Go catch up.”

He shook his head. “But this is the best part! You get to practice hitting!”

“I’m not going,” he said.

I gave him a snack to see if that would help. It didn’t.

My husband and I looked at each other helplessly.

“Ok, so take a little break and then you can go back in.”

“I’m not going in,” Ethan said, arms crossed.

And then Nomar walked by. Nomar: who I really had no idea about until buying the tickets and now suddenly it was like I was in the presence of royalty.

That’s when I grabbed him by the arm. He looked at me, surprised.

“Hi,” I said. “My son here doesn’t want to go hit. Could you possibly talk to him?”

“Sure,” Nomar said.

That’s when he called Ethan over and their conversation ensued as my husband and I tried and failed at eavesdropping. Despite Ethan’s crossed arms and slight scowl, I remained hopeful.

As more time passed, however, my hopes dwindled. In the meantime, I snapped endless photos to post on Facebook.

When I moved closer to see if I could hear more of their conversation, I knew Nomar was losing this battle. When he said, “Come on, Ethan, I’ll walk you out to your group,” Ethan only shook his head no.

I turned toward my husband and loudly whispered, “He’s saying no to Nomar!” Suspecting the reason might be stranger danger, I intervened.

“Ethan , it’s OK. You can go with Nomar. It was really nice of him to offer to walk you out there.”

“No,” Ethan said, shaking his head this time for emphasis. Nomar shrugged. “You sure Ethan?”

The boy nodded.

I wanted to scream: But it’s Nomar—the guy I mistakenly thought was Dustin who I’m now obsessed with! Instead, I asked Nomar to take a photo with me, which he graciously obliged before moving on.

Looking back, I’m not sure why any of this surprised me. Ethan had always been a cautious and strong-willed child. Even before he was born. He held on so long inside the womb that after three hours of pushing, they decided to use the vacuum to force his hand. He came out screaming.

It was the same when he learned to swim. Although he was one of the older children in his class, he refused to swim in the deep end with the rest of the kids, despite our best efforts to get him there. Despite the fact that his little brother was already happily swimming there.

It was the last class when Ethan’s teacher talked with him in the middle of the pool, after which she brought him out to the deep end. She left him there, with his floatation device on, and backed up to the shallow end.

“Come on Ethan,” she said. “Swim to me.”

And then that it happened. To this day, I have no idea what she said to him. But he swam to her. He swam to her, and then he was mad, as though he’d been tricked. As my husband I cheered for him, Ethan walked toward us and threw his floatation device on the side of the pool.

“That was awesome, Ethan!” I said.

He wouldn’t look at me.

About thirty seconds later and still not looking at me he ordered, “put my bubble back on.” So I did. Next thing I knew he was swimming on his own toward the deep end and he’d never fear it again.

It never ceases to surprise me that my children have minds and hearts and powerful wills of their own. That they are not just carbon copies of me and their dad. Logically I get it. But emotionally, I tend to forget.

At the baseball clinic it was the same. Not long after Nomar walked away, Ethan made his own decision to go to batting practice. And he loved it. When he was done and walking back to the gym with his group, Nomar called from across the giant room, “Nice going Ethan!”

That evening at dinner at a nearby hotel, we asked Ethan why he refused to walk with Nomar.

“I don’t know,” he said. “It was like I was in one of those cartoons…with the angel sitting on one shoulder and the devil on the other. That was happening. I couldn’t decide what to do.”

And that’s what it boils down to, I think: learning to make up one’s own mind. As parents, we get to take our kids to the field, but we must remain in the dugout, quietly cheering them on while they choose their next play: Yes or no. Good or bad.

Angel or devil. And … swing.

Amy Yelin’s writing has appeared in Brain, Child, Literary Mama, The Mid, The Manifest-Station, The Boston Globe and more. Her essay about having boys, titled “Once Upon a Penis,” appeared in the anthology Mamas & Papas: On the Sublime and Heartbreaking Art of Parenting. She is managing editor for SolLit-Diverse Voices and her website is yelinwords.com.

Do We Put Too Much Emphasis on Children’s Gifts at Holiday Time?

Posted on December 21, 2014 by CNF • Posted in Blog, Highlights, Slider Content • Tagged Christmas, Christmas List, Ellen Painter Dollar, family, gift giving, gifts, holidays, Jennifer Collins, Kristina Cerise, motherhood, parenting • Leave a comment

The December holidays are no doubt a time for gift giving, but how much is too much? Jennifer Collins thinks our children are overindulged: the focus of Christmas should be on experiences and helping others. Kristina Cerise is trying to walk a middle ground between buying her children things they need and also things they want. Ellen Painter Dollar believes bestowing her children with generous presents at Christmas is a reflection of the holiday’s true meaning.

Yes!

By Jennifer Collins

It has always been a priority to make Christmas just as wonderful and magical for my own children as it was for me. To make lots of memories and to spoil them a bit, too. But six years ago my husband and I decided to chase a job and move from Georgia to Maine, far away from our families. We were faced with the unique opportunity of creating our own holiday traditions anew.

In the beginning, our families overwhelmed us with gifts, because they weren’t there. They wanted the kids to know they were loved and thought of across the miles. I also overcompensated with things because I wanted the kids to have a good Christmas—to make up somehow for the distance away from their relatives.

But recently my husband and I have decided to scale back the focus on gifts. We notice the bins of toys the kids neglect, the puzzles that are never put together, the dolls that aren’t played with. Our kids have more than they need. More than they want. They really don’t even know what to write on their Christmas Lists this year.

A couple of weeks ago I asked my children if they could remember what gifts they received last Christmas. They could only name one or two. What did they remember most about our family Christmas traditions? My daughter said she loved going to the nursing home and singing to the residents. My son’s memories were about making holiday-themed cookies and wearing Christmas pajamas while reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas” before bed on Christmas Eve. And of course they remembered the shenanigans of our elf “Cole” that stays with us from Thanksgiving to Christmas and reports their actions to Santa each night.

My children remember more about the gifts they’ve given others than the presents they received themselves—such as the customized pencil-and-crayon vase my daughter gave her first grade teacher and the glittery handprint ornament my son made for our tree. They’ve picked out special toys for children their age from the Angel Tree and have dropped coins into the Salvation Army’s red kettle. My children seem to understand intuitively that the true joy of Christmas is connected to the thoughtful and careful process of giving.

This year we are doing Christmas differently. We will give our children fewer things and yet enrich their lives with more of the holiday experiences they remember so well from the past. They will be receiving a few handcrafted gifts from us and some items that they have on their lists— a sword, Legos and pajamas for our four-year-old; craft supplies and books for our eight-year-old. But they won’t be receiving any of the extra “fillers” that always seem to creep in. Our kids seldom have lists that are miles long. We are the ones that over-do it each year. We are the contributors to their overflowing, neglected toy bins.

This Christmas we are also going to spend more time serving others and looking for ways to help out in our community. We will sing Christmas carols in the nursing home again. We will make a pet food donation to the local animal shelter. My daughter also wants to bake cookies for the local police and fire departments. We have one project for each weekend of the month leading up to Christmas. Our new tradition.

Yes, our kids enjoy Santa and stockings, and all the typical holiday fun. But ultimately, for us, Christmas is a religious holiday. And I am thankful that we have put the tradition of giving—not receiving—back at its core.

Jennifer Collins is a mom with a day job and she likes to write about her victories and messes along the way. She is living an adventurous life as a Georgia transplant learning to thrive in Maine. Jennifer’s writing has been featured on BlogHer, iVillage Australia, Daddy Doin’ Work, and Mamapedia. She blogs at www.gracefulmess.me.

A Little Bit!

By Kristina Cerise

My Facebook feed is more divided during the holidays than during elections. On one side are those counting down the shopping weeks, days and hours until children charge expectantly into living rooms looking for parcels and cookie crumbs. On the other side are those who post links to simplicity challenges, bemoan outrageous holiday spending, and champion giving experiences instead of things.

The division isn’t only on my screen, it’s also in my bed. My husband’s holiday compass points to a different North than mine.

I come from a tradition of simple holidays. Exchanging practical gifts was what my family did. It exemplified our values. It showed we were too sophisticated to fall for marketing. It proved we didn’t need to keep up with the Joneses (or Bakers, in our case). The socks and underwear in our stockings were evidence that we were above it all.

Now, I see that we were just poor. And proud. But I also see the joy in the intimacy of those holidays. I remember selecting and distributing one present at a time from underneath the tree. I remember the slow reveal. The expression of gratitude. The passing around of the gift for admiration. The hug for the giver.

Despite having the means to give more extravagantly now, my siblings and I still choose to keep our gifts to each other simple. We exchange consumable gifts for each family to share: a jar of home-canned jam, a bag of special caramels. Some years even that feels like too much and, in the midst of the holiday madness, we call each other to say, “Wanna skip it this year and just know we still love each other?”

That would never fly with my in-laws or the sweet man who gifted me his last name.

My husband’s family distributes gift lists on Excel spreadsheets. They consider GPSs appropriate stocking stuffers. My in-laws start delivering gifts well before Christmas to try to disguise the fact that they won’t fit in a single car load.

The first time I witnessed the madness I felt physically ill and mentally confused. Their approach to Christmas was so different from anything I’d experienced that I couldn’t even recognize the holiday. I had thought I wanted to leave my own family and all its quirks behind, but that first shared Christmas made me long for second-hand gifts from Grandma’s garage wrapped in Sunday comics.

In the beginning years of our marriage, I raged against the consumerism. I touted the merits of jam giving. I fought the excess. But the joy from my husband and in-laws was greater than my judgment and I lost the battle and then the war. Admittedly, the Le Creuset stockpot helped ease the pain of defeat.

My childhood taught me that presents can either meet a need or satisfy a want and I want my kids to learn to be grateful for both types of gifts. So, I still give practical things: underwear, socks, math workbooks.

My husband’s family taught me the joy of receiving something you want but don’t actually need. Something frivolous. Something fun. So, I put practicality on the back burner and buy my kids some of the ridiculous things they ask for: more Pokémon cards, a platypus puppet. After all, I remember wanting a neon pink horse with a purple tail and glitter shapes on its haunches.

For me, the jar of jam approach to gift giving feels too small. But the Excel spreadsheet method feels too big. I am Goldilocks, still looking for the “just right” holiday experience.

Some people suggest that metrics such as a dollar limit or a maximum number of gifts can be used to ensure the right balance. For me, though, it is about ratios.

I want a holiday with more gratitude than greed.

I want a holiday with more wonder than wastefulness.

This is my tenth year of working with my husband to define “just right” for this family we’ve created by merging genes from two ends of the gift-giving spectrum. And each year I think we get a little bit closer.

Kristina Cerise is a Seattle writer, editor and mom trying to find meaning in the madness. The mom she planned to be often shakes her head at the mom she has become. She caffeinates daily, blogs regularly (www.definingmotherhood.wordpress.com) and tweets occasionally @DefineMother.

No!

By Ellen Painter Dollar

Every year, my kids declare that gifts are their favorite part of Christmas. Does this make me worry that I’m raising materialistic children ignorant of the holiday’s “true meaning”? Not really. When I was their age, the thrill of a pile of wrapped presents under a twinkling tree was my favorite thing about Christmas too. I still feel that thrill, although now it’s less about what’s under the tree (mostly trinkets that my kids buy at the school craft fair) and more about anticipating them opening the gifts I have painstakingly chosen.

There’s no doubt our American Christmas is too commercial; I finish most of my shopping by Thanksgiving to avoid December’s hectic mall crush and focus on the home-centered activities I enjoy more. But as a Christian, I also believe that gift giving can be a meaningful reflection of God’s extravagant love and generosity, which is the holiday’s true meaning for us. While we’ve pared down gift giving among the adults in our family, we still joyfully present each child with a generous pile of gifts.

In addition to practical presents—pajamas, hats and gloves, lip balm, books, jeans, art supplies—I get each child one “big” gift, not necessarily expensive (though it might be), not necessarily physically large (though it might be), but something that, in their eyes, will be magnificent. These gifts are meant not only to fulfill a desire, but also to affirm who each of my children are and who they are becoming.

For example, two years ago, we gave our then 13-year-old daughter, who loves the outdoors and is unable to do most sports because of a physical disability, a real archery set. (What gratification I felt when I saw this email from her best friend: “YOU GOT A REAL BOW AND ARROWS FOR CHRISTMAS?!!” Yes indeed, she did.) My other daughter, a born caregiver, got a bed for her favorite doll. She placed it under a sunny bedroom window, where she lovingly tucked her doll in every night for months. My son, a nontraditional boy who gravitates toward sparkle and dolls and the color pink, received a Barbie dream house that I assembled ahead of time, so it would be ready for immediate play.

The happiness inspired by material gifts is fleeting, but it is also genuine. I hope that my kids’ happiness with their holiday presents goes beyond momentary captivation with something shiny and new, to a sense of belonging, an unnamed gratitude for parents who know them well enough to get them a just-right gift.

At their best, this is the function that gifts—even frivolous ones—can serve in our consumer culture. Thoughtfully chosen gifts reinforce the deep satisfaction of being loved by someone who knows what you need, what will make you happy. One Mother’s Day, I desperately needed something beautiful and unnecessary to lift me from an exhausted postpartum funk; my husband splurged on a watch that was far more than a time-keeping tool. The material illuminates the immaterial; a well-chosen gift can be a tangible reminder of intangible realities, such as love and grace.

Parental love is usually expressed in the mess of everyday life—school lunches made, dinners served, shoes tied, arguments refereed. Christmas giving invites me to take a step back from the daily muddle, to ponder my children’s talents, passions, and struggles, and what gift might offer the encouragement, inspiration, comfort, or distraction they need. I go to all of this trouble with Christmas gifts for the same reason I go to the trouble with the necessary, routine stuff—to show my children that I see them, know them, and love them just as they are, and am committed to helping them grow and thrive.

When my children thank me for their presents, I hope that somewhere in their gratitude, even if they might not recognize it, is thanks for all of the less shiny but oh-so-necessary daily gifts I give them. This season’s excesses need not be distractions from the essential meaning and joy of Christmas. Rather, they can kindle within all of us a renewed gratitude for the less extravagant, more fundamental gifts—food, relationships, warmth, beauty—that sustain us every day.

Ellen Painter Dollar is a writer whose work explores the intersections of faith, parenthood, disability, and ethics. She is author of No Easy Choice: A Story of Disability, Parenthood, and Faith in an Age of Advanced Reproduction (Westminster John Knox, 2012), and blogs for the Patheos Progressive Christian Channel.