It’s that time of year again. The time of year when people start asking you what’s on your list. The time of year when friends and family members wish to show their appreciation of you through commercialized gift giving and the purchasing of “stuff.” And they expect you to be ready with several items that you have been lusting after (in the $10-$20 range) all year, so when you don’t know what you want, well, it is very annoying to them.
But what if you do know what you want? And what if the things that you want cannot be found at Wal*Mart, or even the locally owned business that sells all that cute stuff? What if the stuff you have been yearning for isn’t stuff at all? What kind of a Christmas list is that?
You see, I have too much stuff as it is. In fact, I have been working hard all year to get rid of the stuff in here, so the last thing I want is for a steady train of new stuff to start chugging in to Tenor Dad station in a week and a half. If you really want to get me something for Christmas, come over to my house, pick something of mine that you like, and take it away! I probably do not need it. And if I do need it, I am probably confused and actually don’t need it after all.
It’s not that I don’t want things. I do. I want lots of things. I want my two year old to stop getting up in the middle of the night and jumping on me. If someone could give me that, it would really be the best Christmas ever. And I want to be able to make enough money with my music that I could make a reasonable contribution to my family’s finances. So hey, if you want to hire me on a semi-regular basis doing something musical, give me a call. I’ll just be here, trying to keep that two year old from killing himself.
Actually, what I’d really love is a little political will in the area of climate change. We have hurricanes in Vermont now. And we don’t have blizzards. This is terrifying to me. Why don’t people care more about this? We seriously have all of the solutions that we need to at least start to combat this thing, but not enough people to care about doing it, and that is even more terrifying to me. But I don’t think my Mom can wrap that up and give it to me.
Hey, do you know what I’d like this year? For my daughter’s health problems to go away. Gone. Solved. Evaporated into thin air. I’d almost trade fixing the planet for that. I can’t have peace on Earth while my children are suffering, so this one has a star next to it on my list, so that Santa knows I’m serious.
And as long as I am wishing for things that can’t be given to me, I wouldn’t mind being thirty pounds lighter. I’d wake up Christmas morning, looking like I did in college again (the skinny beginning of college, not the chubbier end of it), and I would bounce out of bed with a spring in my step and not be able to get dressed because none of my clothes would fit. Hooray! Naked Christmas!
So is there nothing that I want that comes from a store? Well, no, I’m sure there are things that I will enjoy getting. I’m not going to say a hard no to “The Avengers” DVD. Also, my couch is kind of broken, so if someone could fit a new one in my stocking, that would be awesome. But somehow, and maybe this is a sign of growing up and getting old, Christmas isn’t really about presents anymore. I mean, it never really was anyway, was it? But now the gift giving isn’t even a major component for me. Instead, I’m enjoying family time. Creating new traditions, singing songs, and baking. Watching them light the advent candles at church, and hoping for something better to come along in the upcoming year. A new light, and a new beginning. And none of that has anything to do with me getting more stuff.