Spring Break
The Love family's Christmas misadventures
Rachel Love
Issue date: 12/5/08 Section: Diversions
When I was still young enough to believe in Santa Claus (Santa equals presents), my sisters and I often got everything on our lists. Presents meant so much to us, and my mom had a knack for making Christmas more than magical. We got matching pajamas on Christmas Eve, sugary cereal on Christmas morning, pretty dresses for our neighbors' Christmas party and played with our presents for hours upon hours in a mess of wrapping paper that my mom didn't make us clean up until the next day.
But for any adult, it should be obvious that the true meaning of Christmas is spending quality time with family and loved ones. Expecting gifts is a faux pas, and instead, playing endless board games and making Christmas cookies becomes the real present.
One year, close to the time my sister told me (quite unceremoniously) that Santa did not exist, Christmas in our house started to get more "mature." What does that mean? Well, for my family it meant waiting until Christmas eve to get a tree, knocking on the side of a "tree lot" trailer an hour before midnight mass (that's at 11 p.m., if you're bad at math) and being told by a bleary-eyed Boy Scout leader that we could "just take it." We took our five-foot tall, slightly brown Christmas tree home and decorated it with the most recent batch of homemade ornaments, and you know what? It didn't feel any different than any other year. Our free Christmas tree was just as good as the $70 one we bought the year before, and doggonit if we weren't going to leave it up until February just to prove it.
Even if you're one of the many underprivileged in our community, small tokens of appreciation from your friends and family are often commonplace. It's a way for people to show that they love, appreciate and know you. However, with four children, some gift wishes can fall through the cracks. We learned at a young age not to count or compare gifts, as we knew that my parents, and even Santa loved us all equally. But one fateful Christmas saw my second oldest sister, Lisa, fall through the cracks in a serious way.
But for any adult, it should be obvious that the true meaning of Christmas is spending quality time with family and loved ones. Expecting gifts is a faux pas, and instead, playing endless board games and making Christmas cookies becomes the real present.
One year, close to the time my sister told me (quite unceremoniously) that Santa did not exist, Christmas in our house started to get more "mature." What does that mean? Well, for my family it meant waiting until Christmas eve to get a tree, knocking on the side of a "tree lot" trailer an hour before midnight mass (that's at 11 p.m., if you're bad at math) and being told by a bleary-eyed Boy Scout leader that we could "just take it." We took our five-foot tall, slightly brown Christmas tree home and decorated it with the most recent batch of homemade ornaments, and you know what? It didn't feel any different than any other year. Our free Christmas tree was just as good as the $70 one we bought the year before, and doggonit if we weren't going to leave it up until February just to prove it.
Even if you're one of the many underprivileged in our community, small tokens of appreciation from your friends and family are often commonplace. It's a way for people to show that they love, appreciate and know you. However, with four children, some gift wishes can fall through the cracks. We learned at a young age not to count or compare gifts, as we knew that my parents, and even Santa loved us all equally. But one fateful Christmas saw my second oldest sister, Lisa, fall through the cracks in a serious way.
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