Every year around the Holiday Season, there is at least one client who expresses the worry that the kids will not get everything on their wish lists, or maybe not get any presents at all. And I can understand that worry, but there’s something more important to consider.
So I say, “Well, let me ask you this: what did you get for Christmas/Channukah when you were 10?” And pretty much every time I ask that question to a client, there’s this longer than usual moment of silence, followed by, “I can’t remember.” And then I say, “Exactly.”
I can’t tell you what I got for Christmas when I was nine (or thirteen or seventeen or whatever age), but I can tell you what we did every year at Christmas – what became our own Holiday Traditions. I remember every year on Christmas Eve, the presents would be under the tree in the living room, which was darkened so that the lights on the tree were even more pronounced, the tinsel on the tree even more shimmery, and the tree’s flowing skirt of gifts even more inviting and mysterious. I can remember my annual ordeal of wanting desperately to know what was inside those tightly wrapped gifts, knowing the wrapping paper had to be just dying to be ripped off and the present inside revealed, aching to set those gifts free from their color coordinated confines.
My childhood agonies of waiting to get to the main event was always intensified by the fact we always had to have a formal, multi-course dinner in the dining room, under a candle chandelier, just steps away from those gifts wrapped in Christmas colors. Sitting in as formal attire as a tomboy would wear, I remember sitting at our dining room table, trying desperately not to wolf down dinner (which always drew the immense ire of my father), the woven red Christmas table runner seeming to groan under the number of plates and glasses and food dishes set out on the table. And all the while trying to ignore the never-ending thoughts of those presents just steps away, glistening with light reflecting ribbons, the ongoing mystery of what package was for me, the answer only revealed by finally getting to read those gift tags written out in the neat cursive of my mother’s hand.
After finishing dinner, there was even more agony to face: the dreaded clearing off the dining room table, putting the endless stream of dirty dishes into the washing machine, and cleaning up the kitchen, which always seemed to take way longer than it should have. And then there was the preparation of desserts – the boxes of marzipan chocolates and Holiday cinnamon and gingerbread cookies from Europe – all of which had to be put out in an organized, symmetrical fashion on wooden trays with accompanying Christmas colored napkins. And then the candles – we had to light the Christmas candles, and the Advent candles which announced Christmas was finally here. And then . . .
FINALLY!! The joyful commencement of tearing open those presents, shreds of wrapping paper all over the floor, and the inevitable wearing of ribbons and bows on our heads as the evening progressed.
What was in those packages, I can’t remember. But I remember what we did. I remember the agony of waiting, of the dining room table laden with Christmas dinner, the prolonged wait for the main event because we always had to clean up the kitchen and make coffee and set out the cookies just so, and the candles we lit every year to mark the Holiday. That is what I keep with me all these years later.
It’s the experiences we remember, not things.