At the risk of sounding like a Scrooge, here it is: there’s a lot to hate about the holidays. It seems the older I get the more complicated it all becomes.
At age three my sole purpose at Christmas was to eat cookies and open presents. I was happy with that.
At age seven I sang in the school Christmas concert, took a treat to my class for the holiday party, ate cookies and opened presents. It was still all good.
During fourth grade I remember the first time I felt the stress of the holidays. For our class gift exchange, we each brought in a gift: girls brought girl gifts and boys brought boy gifts. Then the teacher drew a name out of the hat and the person selected one of the wrapped presents. My name was picked first. Being the new kid in school that year, I was still in the process of making friends. Since I had the top pick among all the girl presents, I got to select the best looking one and, by default, possibly make or lose a friend. So the heart starts racing as I consider my options: do I pick the prettiest package, the largest, the cute little bag, the shiny silver one? It’s a little much for a fourth grader. I didn’t want to pick, so I quickly grabbed a medium sized, simply wrapped box. It was a puzzle. I actually enjoy puzzles today, but then not so much. I couldn’t help but wish I’d chosen a different package.
By age 12 the stress started to kick in. Since class gift exchanges were now done, groups of friends started buying each other little trinkets. Without any income, my budget was stretched and I feared someone would give me a gift without me having one for them. In my senior year of high school we finally got smart and drew names with a $20 limit. I got a t-shirt which can only be worn today by my petite little sister.
In college it was more of the same, but now with boys thrown in the mix. What are the rules on buying gifts for the guy you’re dating? Will he like it? Is it too much? Not enough? I once read you should spend $10 per month you’ve been together. Sounds fair enough to me.
Somewhere along the line, Christmas cards also became a necessity. This year I got smart and bought a special address book for my Christmas card list. Then I can pack it away with the decorations after the holidays. Too bad it’s still blank. Truthfully I haven’t even ordered my Christmas cards yet. We plan to do a family photo with the new-to-us combine, but it hasn’t worked out yet; rain, work and lack of a photographer keep getting in the way.
Now that I guess I’m an adult, there’s more fun things in store. Since our first Christmas together, Nate and I agreed I would shop for my family and he would shop for his for joint presents from the both of us. This year though it seems I’m picking up the slack on both ends. My siblings and I did make one smart decision last year: we started drawing names for a gift exchange, eliminating five gifts from my list. But at the pace I’m shopping now, everyone else is getting gift cards.
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