I have issues...

Ah… the days immediately following Christmas. The darkest of days for me when that dreaded question “what did you get for Christmas?” comes up over and over, and over, again. I’ve always hated that question. Always. As a kid, I never got the “big haul” of super-cool presents. I come from a big family, and so there usually wasn’t a lot of extra money. We always had a big family Christmas, but we didn’t do big presents. And for all I know, everyone else in the family may have hated it – but I loved it. All six of us kids, along with spouses, and the grand kids, all came together for dinner and to exchange relatively small gifts on Christmas. We all sat at one HUGE table for dinner. And then we’d all sit around the living room together, in chairs and on the floor and on each others’ laps, and open gifts. We laughed, and talked, and played together all afternoon and into the evening. Those were good afternoons full of love.

But then the 26th came every year. Bleh. When I was a kid, that meant the phone calls from friends, anxious to tell me about the Atari console they got, and the cassette tape player, the new bike, the clothes, the candy, and all of the other stuff. And every year, with every one of those calls, I cringed. Because I knew it meant the question was coming. “what did YOU get?”

I hated it. I grew up on the edge of a cultural change in America. I was stuck right in the middle of a time when families were transitioning from being very minimal and very focused on family to being very gluttonous and focused on things. My parents were a little older, and lived most of their lives with a June & Ward Cleaver sort of thing going on, with just 3 television stations to watch, one car for the family, and a stay-at-home mom. My friends had parents who were a little younger, who were growing up very differently, with two working parents, and less kids, and bigger houses, and with more disposable income to spend on things like cable television and electronic “gadgets”. Their families all gave each other tons and tons of “stuff” every year. My family didn’t do that. We didn’t go crazy about “stuff”. I always got a few things that I really wanted and a few things that I really needed. I never got a big pile of “stuff”. It wasn’t about that.

As a kid, especially a kid in a changing society focused more and more on excess, it was easy to get caught up into thinking that getting more “stuff” meant you were somehow better than those who got less “stuff”. So a part of me never felt like I measured up to those other kids who got those big piles of “stuff”. I never felt like I was one of the cool kids.

“What did you get for Christmas?” I learned to effectively evade the question, not wanting to sound less cool than everyone else. I learned how to focus on maybe just one or two things about my Christmas, and then turn the conversation back to them. It was usually pretty easy to do – most people, especially kids, don’t have trouble talking about themselves. Thankfully, the school break provided a slight buffer. By the time we all went back to class in January, the excitement over all that “stuff” was usually waning, and evading got easier.

As an adult, you’d think it wouldn’t even be an issue. After all, as adults we’re all more in control of our emotions, right? We’re all more mature, and less materialistic, and able to focus on the real reason for the season, right?

Not.

In the dark days immediately following Christmas, we’re still all like a bunch of kids – excited about getting gifts, and anxious to share that excitement. It hasn’t changed. I still hate the question. “What did you get for Christmas?” I still don’t ever feel like I measure up. I still have friends who’s families go overboard. And even when I receive gifts that I LOVE, and that are very thoughtfully given, and that are REALLY cool, and sometimes even really expensive, it seems there’s always someone who gets a more “perfect” gift, and it just gets to me when they tell me about it. And while I am now a grownup who can rationally understand that the number of presents you get does not represent the measure of someone’s love for you, and I am now a grownup parent who truly wants to impart that wisdom to her kids, a part of me still wishes that I could be the one who has all the coolest stuff in a really huge pile of presents.

This all makes me sounds just awful, I know. Trust me, if I could get back just one of those family Christmases with all 25 or 30-ish of us crammed into my parents house, passing bowls of mashed potatoes around that huge table, I’d be the happiest girl on earth. I wish like crazy that I could somehow take Charlie and the kids to just one of those Matthews family Christmases so they could understand how great it was. And I dearly love the Christmases I have now! It’s wonderful to be able to give my family a fun Christmas full of love, albeit a different kind of Christmas than I had a kid. And I’m the first one to mean it when I say that all I really want for Christmas every year is to be with the people I love. I’m just sayin’… no matter how grown up I get, I still can’t get beyond that selfish, childish, silliness – part of me still wants a mountain of toys.

But I’m working on it.

I’m working on getting better. Bear with me.

(and, yes, I DO know that this is not what you’d expect from me after my long blogging absence this fall… I’m working on getting better at this, too!)