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 awaits his turn for an unorthodox mother-hugging |
No bat guano earrings
under the tree this Xmas
By GINA GALLO
of TheColumnists.com
It’s that time of year again. For people already overburdened with the stress of work, family and a host of multi-tasker’s responsibilities, there’s nothing like the additional chore of holiday gift buying to push them over the edge.
As soon as the calendar flips to December, some harried shoppers are thrown immediately into gift block, a frightening condition that prevents them from having one single clue about the right present for their list of loved ones. Coming up with creative gift ideas? Unless you’re Martha Stewart or a dedicated mall rat, that capacity goes south around the same time the faux Santas set up their donation pails outside every department store, and continues to nosedive with each relentlessly cheery holiday carol piped through every shopping sound system in Retail America
The message and the pressure, is clear: “Happy freakin’ holidays. Spend your money and buy the gifts or risk looking like a cheap Scrooge.”
It’s the same emotional leverage used
every year that keeps some of us trudging along with the other
overtired, over-stressed and underwhelmed shoppers who’ve
long since given up on finding the perfect gift and would be
willing to settle for any reasonable facsimile that’s not
too exorbitant and will pass muster when covered in enough gift
wrap to disguise the dents or tears incurred when you wrestled
it away from some other frantic shopper.
For some befuddled husbands, sons, boyfriends and significant
others who understand the importance of giving the perfect gift,
and the fall-out that occurs when they don’t, holiday shopping
can feel like an extreme sport that often ends in sudden death
overtime.
Since their trump card excuse of being a clueless male can only be played for a season or two, the men in my life have refined their approach. Instead of being suckered in by the holiday madness, they revert to their gender-approved Plan B, one that eliminates the guesswork and allows them to cut to the chase. They just ask me what I want.
During his early teens, my musician son
Brett happened to notice I was running low on dental floss.
“I gotta go to Guitar World to pick up some new strings,”
he told me. “How’d you like a pack for Christmas? Steel
strings would be great for getting out any plaque or tartar,
don’t you think?”
In grammar school, older son Eric once asked if I’d enjoy
a few afternoons out for some entertainment. And then followed
that up on Christmas morning by informing me that he’d signed
me up as a volunteer mom in his school Science lab, where my
‘entertainment’ consisted of the care, feeding and
cleaning of their half-dozen white rats.
Over the years, they’ve presented me with such a variety
of strange things so wildly disassociated from their original
questions, they could have come from the Monty Python Personal
Shopper Service. Some of the more notable items: A real rattlesnake
head key chain complete with fangs; glow-in-the-dark Silly Putty
(in case I got an urge to sculpt in the dark); earrings made
of nuggets of bat guano (‘it’s a fossil, Mom, just
like amber....only different.’) and a three-legged albino
hamster.
The intentions and love that came with
each gift were priceless, and each became a cherished treasure
(with the exception of the hamster, who met an untimely demise
after the little glutton escaped his cage and snarfed half a
pineapple upside down cake.)
Now that the holiday season is under way, I’m expecting
their annual gift questions to come any time now. And because
they’re grown men with lives of their own, I’m going
to cut to the chase myself and tell them exactly what I want
before they ask.
This year I want to watch my Navy son walk toward me in the airport,
and feel the joy and relief that he’ll be home with family
for Christmas instead of a Middle Eastern war zone.
I want to watch my long, impossibly lean younger son inhale every morsel of food at Christmas dinner, proceed to demolish whatever’s in the fridge, and then ask if we can send out for pizza. I want to watch these beautiful young men with five-o’clock shadows sleep in their respective beds while I remember what it was like to stroke their baby cheeks.
And when they first come home and grab me in a wild spinning hug where my feet are airborne, I want to remember twirling my toddlers through endless ‘airplane’ rides.
I want to tell them how proud I am of them,
how lucky I am to be their mother, and how, even now, I’m
astonished that these two amazing people are related to me. My
greatest gift was the ticket ride through the excursion of their
lives. To know your children are accomplished, intelligent and
talented is a blessing for any parent. To understand that somehow,
in spite of all the doubts, anxiety and guesswork that’s
part of parenting, they became men of integrity and character
who are kind and compassionate is a gift beyond price.
This year, my men/children will give me a Christmas I didn’t
think would happen. Each of them lives in a different part of
the country with work commitments that made a holiday visit seem
impossible. But they’re coming home anyway, bringing all
their jokes and wisecracks, love and laughter.
And whether we’re opening gifts or
scaring up some pizza or talking into the night,
I’ll be savoring the gift of these two precious people who
gave me life the instant they began theirs.
©2005 by Gina Gallo. The photo is the property of the author. All rights reserved. This column first posted Dec. 5, 2005.
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