It’s truly amazing how much fun Christmas can be when you make a conscious decision not to try to outspend your relatives, not to worry about keeping every tradition and not to contribute 15 tons of wrapping paper to the waste stream.
I warned the kids ahead of time that I was really going to avoid the low-priced imports and fancy electronics favored by Wal-Mart. It is so not worth getting trampled over a $29 DVD player.
My sister, who teaches earth science, has this down to a science. And her gifts, colorfully, but sparsely wrapped are always personal and warmly received. Taking a cue from her, I saved gift bags and tissue from Christmases past and didn’t need to buy a thing. I don’t think the kids were saying I’m a piker.
My 2-year-old granddaughter’s most beloved present was a doll blanket knitted by my sister. She wrapped her “sleepy dolly” in the blanket and carried it around for a half-hour before she would open anything else.
My daughter had ordered two T-shirts for my sister and me. My sister’s shirt was printed with her favorite saying, “And you’re telling me this because…?” This is the response she gives to her students with elaborate excuses for late assignments and missed tests. On my shirt was printed the graph of an EKG with a flat line in the middle, with a statement below reading, “For a minute there, you bored me to death.” How perfect! Later I peaked at the labels. Knit in U.S.A., assembled in Mexico. Ah, well, could be worse. It might have been shipped all the way from the opposite side of the planet.
My grandson spent most of Christmas Day cruising down the driveway on his one big toy, a Jeep CJ-5, four-wheeled, dryland snowboard with a hand-held brake. It reminded me of the Christmas I got a red Flexi-Flyer, a kind of dryland sled that you rode flat out on your stomach with a handle on each side to steer. Our sidewalk had just enough slope so I could get up a good head of steam before coming to the cross street, where I had to swerve onto someone’s lawn – the Flexi having no brakes whatsoever.
We gave each other books and Barnes & Noble “book dollars,” fancy Belgian chocolates and homemade cakes and breads, designer olive oil and organic lotions and soaps.
My son-in-law gave me a generous gift certificate for the vacation of my choice, which probably won’t be a cruise, but might be a train trip across Canada.
I told my grandson I would take him to an event of his choosing (but no violent films or demolition derbies). He chose a PG, “Two Thumbs Up” movie, “Cheaper by the Dozen,” which we went to Saturday while his mother and sister were getting their haircuts. Good choice. It was hilarious and chaotic and slapstick enough to keep a 9-year-old entertained without explosions or gunfire.
For Christmas Eve dinner, I roasted a turkey breast sans dressing and made mashed potatoes and gravy, which the kids have always favored. But coming so close after Thanksgiving, I decided to roast the potatoes along with some colorful peppers, beets, baby eggplants and such. My son didn’t know what to make of that, but was polite enough not to comment.
Pumpkin pie and whiskey cake made everything okay. I mean some traditions just shouldn’t be broken.
Snow was forecast for Christmas night, so our guests left early in the afternoon, and my nephew had to drive my sister back to Malibu before going to another dinner that evening. Clouds were building over the northern ridges as they drove away.
Much later, after a supper of leftovers, the wind came up and knocked out the power. Oh good. The kids built a fire to keep warm. We lit all the candles, and pretty soon the snow began to fall.
It was the perfect time to try out the present I had secretly bought for myself, a Grundig AM/FM short-wave radio with a hand-crank generator. It pulled in the NPR station clearer than my Bose radio. I tried a few short-wave bands, hoping for the BBC. Instead, I got a station from Colorado and a few from overseas in languages I couldn’t even identify. So I listened to Christmas music and read some of my new books, Thomas Friedman’s “Longitudes and Attitudes” and “Bobos in Paradise” by David Brooks.
Reading by candlelight is a stretch for these old eyes, and after awhile I put the books down, blew out the candles and lay on the floor by the French doors, watching the snow swirling and drifting outside.
I dreamed of my other daughter and her husband and child in their new home in Montana, where it had snowed five feet in two days. Their presents for the 4-year-old were skis, boots, a snowsuit and gloves, which changed her whole attitude about daytime highs in single digits. Our gift to them was a lovely copper, outdoor thermometer.
Hard to beat a reasonably simple, really white Christmas.