My 4-year-old daughter Cross already has a better idea of the energy we should put into Christmas gifts than either of her parents combined.
Reliving childhood holiday memories through the gifts you buy your kid is a guilty parenting pleasure. Yes, you buy the latest, most popular toys; yes, you stay up all night putting those toys together; and yes, you play with them as much as your child does, or maybe more. A guiltier pleasure is attempting to go above and beyond anything your parents may have done for you. In my case, that’s an even more ridiculous project — I always felt fortunate enough to get everything I needed in my childhood Christmases — but here we are.
I had an excellent plan. I would teach my child to expect only three gifts for Christmas: something she wants, something she needs, and something educational. In theory, it makes perfect sense. In reality, two things happened I did not game-plan for. The first obstacle was that I didn’t know she would be so stinking cute, with a perfect little smile that made me want to spoil her rotten. The second is that putting only three gifts under a family Christmas tree pushes against the gift culture in which I was raised. It’s kind of like asking a fish not to swim. I am a product of the Big Show.
Where I’m from, we only live for the Big Show.
The Big Show is a grand gesture by parents eager to prove how much they love their children. It looks like a gift explosion. Imagine a beautiful Christmas tree, then pile around it so many gifts it’s almost impossible to get close to the tree — maybe impossible to even see the tree. Gifts all over the floor, gifts stacked up against the wall, gifts on top of other gifts, gifts on the couch, gifts under the couch, gifts in the kitchen, gifts by the toilet, gifts spilling out of the front door — gifts, gifts, gifts.
The Big Show is a grand gesture by parents eager to prove how much they love their children. It looks like a gift explosion.
This was normal in my childhood household and throughout my neighborhood. We were taught to go all out for Christmas. If it was Christmas and the $600 rent is due, and there was exactly $600 in the bank, then you did not pay the rent. You attempt to create the Big Show. This was Dad Logic 101 when I was growing up: You can talk to the rental office, negotiate with the mortgage company, come up with the extra money in January. You will be able to figure it out. But you cannot recreate Christmas. You cannot attach yourself to the magic of December 25 on December 26. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
I saw this throughout my childhood. Automobiles were repossessed in the middle of the night. The power was cut off. Creditors made my house sound like a call center with the way they would ring us all day looking for money owed. That money was spent on those gift explosions. When Christmas came around, my dad had no time to chase a good credit score. He was more into chasing that magical moment — the moment when his spouse or child would tear open their dream gift, take a hard pause, and then say something corny like, “This is all I ever needed in life.”
Lucky for Dad, I was always a grateful kid. When he sprang for that Triple F.A.T Goose coat, I made sure I wore it until the feathers burst out. And when the rent money was spent on those Air Jordans, I wore them until my feet grew and busted at the seams. I played with all of my toys: Mr. Potato Head, Connect 4, the Michael Jackson doll. And every time I received a gift that my dad scraped and saved and borrowed to purchase, I always gave him that look and the little speech about how I could not live without the item he fought so hard for me to have.
My father mastered The Big Show and Dad Logic. We never missed a meal and always had a place to stay, while my siblings and I gifted him the smiles he was searching for while spending his last dollars on our gifts, even as he gave Santa, the imaginary king of giving, all the credit.
Before I had my own child, I wondered why my dad worked so hard just to give credit to Santa. Once I earned the role, I understood that the Big Show was never about getting credit — it was about the smiles on our faces. Our smiles were like a drug to Dad — an unimaginable high that forced him to take risks and allowed him to float through most of the year feeling like the best parent ever. I imagine my father believed that if he messed up a thousand other things, but got Christmas right, then everything else would be OK.
I imagine my father believed that if he messed up a thousand other things, but got Christmas right, then everything else would be OK.
I find myself chasing that same kind of smile when my wife Caron and I began dating. I would do things like charge trips I could not afford or buy the designer items she would randomly mention during our conversations about the things we dreamed of having. Delivering these items made me extremely happy. Receiving those items made her extremely happy. Like me, she is also a very grateful person. But this also pushed us into very dangerous territory. We loved each other dearly, but began letting expensive gifts define that love. She would go over budget to chase the Big Show, just like I would. Just like my dad before us.
I brought this up in a conversation and we both agreed to scale back. We failed. I also brought up the idea of not spoiling our daughter by buying a mountain of toys, promising to stick to the three-gift rule. We failed at that as well. We didn’t even beat ourselves up over it, but we vowed to stick to the rules in years to come. That future came quicker than I could have imagined. It was our 4-year-old daughter who stepped up and ended the Big Show for us.
One night over dinner, we asked her what she wanted for Christmas. Cross tilted her little head and raised an eyebrow. “A Moana baby doll and a Moana dress,” she said.
When my daughter wakes up on Christmas Day without an American Girl doll, I can let someone else take the blame.
She did not ask for a house full of gifts, a new Power Wheels truck, a bicycle, 60 Barbie dolls, a Barbie mansion, a Barbie automobile tire rotation, a toddler kitchen, a toddler hair studio, or any of the other gifts I probably would have purchased to make the Big Show happen. She was simple and to the point, and we listened to her.
A week after Cross gave us her two-item obtainable list, she added an American Girl doll. I whipped out my phone and went to the website ready to order because I’m such a sucker. My wife stepped in and told her, “You have a list. You can get that for your birthday next month.”
Cross did not fight or complain — she simply said OK. She is way smarter than me and understands that she doesn’t need any and every thing to feel loved. Just her family.
In these scary times, when it’s easy for a parent to feel like you’re not doing enough or you’re doing too much for the children, I’m happy that my child understands going overboard isn’t a sign of love. She has indirectly taught Caron and I to focus on what really matters, like our health, well-being and commitment to our family, and to strive for an abundance of love over an abundance of gifts.
I know now I don’t have to hold myself accountable for every magic moment like my dad did. When my daughter wakes up on Christmas Day without an American Girl doll, I can let someone else take the blame. This Christmas, let’s drag Santa through the dirt instead, and maintain our good names.
