Thinking about what Christmas means, and has meant.
When I was a kid it was about magic, a season where folx were actively trying to be nice, where adults worked to create mystery and enchantment for children. It was also about family dysfunction, guilt, with a side of crying and cursing from adults, and general anxiety and disappointment for the kids. Jesus's birthday was a bit of a mess.
As a teen I realized that our extended family Christmas was a bit of a potlatch as well. Each family spent more money than they should; if you didn't go broke spending for Christmas, you were doing it wrong. My mother and her siblings would compete to see who could give the gift most appreciated by their parents, or at least who could give the biggest and most expensive gift (my oldest aunt pretty much always won, and my mother generally came in dead last, hence the grown up tears).
There was an emotional ritual around gift giving. Gifting to others did not involve asking the recipient what they wanted, no wish lists allowed. No, instead, a gift was supposed to show how well you knew the recipient and could intuit the "perfect" gift. As children we were specifically taught how to ooh and ah over a gift as we unwrapped it in front of the giver. A simple "thank you" was considered rude and insolent. We had to show (in person) how we were over the moon with excitement and gratitude. This was most especially amusing/distressing when the gift was obviously a miss, and if you overdid it you risked not only rolling over into insolent/subversive sarcasm, you risked a smack or worse when you were back home as reward for embarrassing your parent.
Now as an adult, trying to figure out what to give my young adult children, I'm enjoying Christmas as a time to connect. Gift giving becomes a chance to ask about what they need, want, what they'd like to be doing, and figuring out if there's anything we can contribute to that. Gift requests on my part have become an invitation to notice what I'm interested in, or for my family to share with me their interests in a way they think I'd find engaging. I don't find the gifts of Christmas to come with as much emotional baggage as they did when I was a kid. I hope that means it's more enjoyable for my kids as well.
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