Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Woman Overboard


Once again I think I've gone overboard on gifts. What does it say about me that I never think that what I'm giving is sufficient? Where along the way did I bury the idea that one thoughtful gift chosen with love was enough? And of course, my children must always have the same number of presents to open, even though they open their presents now in separate homes, with partners, who must also have the same number of gifts from my husband and me, and again, not just one. Now that everything is wrapped and in bags, waiting to be delivered, I can see that I've been excessive. Neither of my children expects anything at all, so why do I set this pace, year after year, of marathon gift-giving?

I think maybe its genesis lies in my feeling like a lonely outpost in an adopted country during this season, trying to replicate for my children the experience of my childhood in Jamaica, where multitudes of aunts and uncles and my parents' large circle of friends brought gifts at Christmas, and our tree was laden on Christmas morning. How ridiculous of me to try to recreate that bounty for my children, when their circumstances were so different from my own childhood, and they had no expectations at all about what Christmas should be, except what I fed to them. And now they are grown, and I am still apparently unable to moderate myself, clicking and buying that one more thing that I happen across that I feel sure they'll love, or use, or find whimsy in. 

I'm a little embarrassed, really. These stuffed bags of gifts in exquisite wrapping paper—my mother always used exquisite wrapping paper, with bows on every present—say so much more about my own sense of want than about what will truly thrill and delight my children, who tell me again and again that they need nothing. I credit their temperance in this regard to their father, who is of the one-well-chosen-gift school of thought, who shakes his head as the boxes arrive at our door, but let's me be, because this is who he married. Yet I can't help but feel I'm being a little obscene not to have curbed myself better in this year when so many families find themselves unable to give even that one gift.

My daughter is with us for the week, and will join her boyfriend and his family for Christmas morning upstate, before they both head back to Boston for his second semester of business school. We all had a bit of a scare two weeks ago when one member of their cohort bubble on campus tested positive for covid, and they'd seen him and his partner just three days before. Fortunately, his worst symptom was a crashing headache that lasted for days, and fatigue. His girlfriend, my daughter's best friend in her new town, soon developed the same symptoms, and yesterday she texted my girl that at precisely 5 p.m. she had suddenly found herself unable to smell or taste anything.

My daughter and her love quarantined scrupulously for two weeks and took three tests each during that time, all of them mercifully negative. My niece, who had just returned to live with us after three months in Orlando, also tested negative a week after she returned. She wore masks in the house and mostly stayed in her room until she got her test result, and she made her boyfriend get tested too before she would see him. He, too, was negative.

The truth is, we have no idea how to stay one hundred percent safe in this covid world, but we're doing our best. We won't see our son for Christmas, he's working that day and night, but he's coming by later this afternoon to exchange gifts and see his sister. He will be masked while he is here. As a front line worker in the city, he will be receive the Moderna vaccine just after the New Year, but as I understand it, that only guarantees that if he gets infected, he'll be able to fight it off with minimal symptoms, though there's no telling if he will still be able to infect others while his immune system rallies. 

We're not doing much of anything on Christmas day, other than cooking a meal. We're keeping everything determinedly low-key. I wager I'll be working on that day like every other, as I'm still trundling along trying to hit my due dates. Just popping in now to say hey, I hope you and your beloveds are doing well. Please stay safe, and I send you love.

17 comments:

  1. Oh, sweet lady. You have made me feel so inadequate. My children are getting money. My grandchildren are getting one gift apiece. I have been thinking lately about the days when I did EVERYTHING for Christmas. The decorating, buying of many gifts, baking gifts for teachers and friends, buying the gifts for my husband's relatives, cooking, having everyone over for meals, the shopping, the wrapping, the same need as you to make everything even and perfect and even cooking for a holiday celebration meal for my husband's employees. How in hell did I do it? Why did I do it? And now in my later years I have stopped almost every bit of it and guess what? No one seems to care. Perhaps I have finally realized that my children love me as imperfect as I am and know without a doubt that I love them, each and every one with such fierce, burning love.
    Or, it could just be that I hate shopping. (There is truth in that.)
    It will be a very different Christmas for all of us and each of us is handling things in our own way. Mostly, let us all be thankful that our babies are healthy and as our main gifts to each other, we should do our best to stay that way ourselves.
    Or something like that.
    I thought about holding your hand today. It brought tears to my eyes. I love you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Do you equate gifts with love? I hope everyone stays well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello, love. Generous soul. I do pretty much the same thing, usually ,but this year has certainly taken a toll on HO-HO-HO . Have a Merry and bright, 2021 will be better for all of us, I reckon.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hope for you all to stay healthy. You are so careful!

    We have a very large family, even with only one child for me, there are cousins and nieces and nephews who by now all have families and then there are the aunts and uncles . . . we decided many years ago that Xmas gifts are only for kids and that we would pool money otherwise spent on adults for donations. That usually starts a long discussion across continents.

    I still buy (possibly too many) gifts for my child and her lovely family, just not at this time but any other time throughout the year.

    The biggest Xmas gift this year will be our many zoom meetings, all booked and ready to go. We are excited!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh my dear, I feel you. A friend posted a thing on FB about the languages of love recently, a theory I've not a huge amount of time for if I am honest, but at this time of year it has been useful. I feel mine is acts of service, and I so giving gifts is about that, not about gifting, which is a different language. My son is also not a gift person, he is a quality time person and he's not getting a gift, by agreement, as we both know he doesn't want anyone else's ideas about what he would like. His partner on the other hand is an incredibly thoughtful gift giver, whose gifts reflect his observations of people acutely and always land. I got a sculpture of baby cheeses tonight from him! Because we had a silly conversation ages ago about it! I had forgotten. This was a delight and made my day. for him, I have sewn many draw string bags as he is a meticulous person and these will help his packing for all the traveling he does to see my son. And so on. Not sure if sharing any of this gives you an insight, but your dilemma resonated with me too as I often feel my gifts are never enough.

    ReplyDelete
  6. My husband, like you, obsesses over gifts. I think you either do or don't, depending on how you celebrated as a child, and it is a set response. I obsess over the Christmas meal, just like my mother and grandmother. Spent yesterday cooking treats, things that we don't need, but it is not Christmas without them. Well, it all says 'love', whether wrapped or plated. Glad you are Covid free so far, as are we. Best wishes for a safe and happy holiday.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Offering no critique of your need of gifting. Each of us must answer our own call to respond to the season and each of us does it in different ways. None more right or wrong than the other. Your family knows how dearly you love them, just as you know how very much you are loved--the greatest gift of all. Pax to your and yours.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love your Christmas spirit. I'm glad that you have maintained your joy even in this season, as challenging as it is. I wish you the merriest of holiday cheer there, to you and your very beautiful family.

    ReplyDelete
  9. that total extravagance, the whole perfection that is supposed to be christmas is one of the reasons I don't do christmas at all, nevermind that I rejected christian theology in my early 20s. christmas here is not a religious holiday but a manufactured event by the retail industry. just look at the ads. please do not think that I am disparaging your own idea and desire for the holiday. I loved it as a child and my parents were also over the top gift givers but once a teenager it became something to get through due to an event that impacted my parents and our family from there on out. no need to go into that here.

    you have done what gives you joy. don't feel guilty about it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Glad all are safe in your family and you will have people to share Christmas with. I will have a few of my children visit - we trust my daughter-in law who is a doctor to tell us who is safe for visiting. I am keeping it more relaxed this Christmas and am really looking forward to that. It will be over before we know it!
    Merry Christmas and best wishes for a happy, healthy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  11. You are a great mother and you're showing your love through the gifts you give. Don't feel embarrassed by that! It's especially touching that it's a way for you to connect with your own childhood experiences; that's part of what Christmas is all about, right?

    ReplyDelete
  12. I kind of miss the buying and wrapping and gazing at them under the tree. However, we're here, everybody else is elsewhere. This year we made the decision not to do retail, so Christmas is a little light on gifts. I do miss foil wrapping paper and the way it reflected the tree lights. So, gift on! It makes you happy, and that's saying something these days.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Sending love to you and your family who all know so well how to be there for each other. The tree and wrapped presents and city lights are magical. May your work go well in these last days of 2020 and into the coming year.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Lovely to have your daughter with you. My youngest son will be in Oxford on his own as our lockdown doesn't allow travel, or him to be here with us! We did have a small family gathering organised but now it will just be myself and husband. We are having a zoom meet up in the morning with the 3 sons and their wifes/partners, so that is something to look forward to. Might even catch a glimpse of the older grandkids if they can tear themselves away from their recently unwrapped presents! Sending love and best wishes to you all from England, where the sun is actually shining this morning!!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. You are fine just as you are, presents and all. Your children know they are loved deeply by you both.

    Stay safe my friend.

    ReplyDelete
  16. We are now living in the part of the UK with this new strain of Covid that is 70% more infectious. I have to say I'm worried. I will be spending Christmas day with just the immediate family.

    I hope you have a wonderful holiday and your family enjoy their gifts.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Forget about a Moderated Christmas, I say go Full On! We all have to struggle with balancing our Christmas Past Memories and developing our own Holiday Traditions. I Confess that Christmas Past sometimes always seems Sweeter thru the Nostalgic Haze I'm sure I'm looking thru. I just know your Family will have fond Memories of the Christmas Nostalgia you've Created for them even if you felt it wasn't Idyllic compared to your own Sweet Nostalgic Memories of Christmas in Jamaica. I know I Loved hearing my Mom regale me with how different a Welsh Christmas was for her growing up, from our American Christmas Celebrations. Happy New Year, may it be filled with Promise.

    ReplyDelete