Random Christmas Rumblings

I’m going to apply for a job at Walmart.

Seriously.

I spend enough time there, this week alone, five visits within three days. Not all of it was my own fault. Like most women, I was trying to MULTI-TASK. POW! POW! POW!

Multi-tasking is not always a good thing. I get up at 5:00 a.m. to arrive at Walmart by 5:30, shop, and then arrive at my son’s house by 6:00. He’s a single Dad and I often send Ellie (8 1/2) and Preston (10) off to school.

Guess what?

Walmart’s photo department doesn’t open until 7:00.

Walmart’s return department doesn’t open until 7:00.

And worst of all, Thursdays are pay days and employees cash their checks at the service department. Which runs out of money.

A lot.

So if you’re returning an item, you have to wait for a cash run.

Sigh.

I have a BIG confession to make.

Christmas spirit has been hard to come by this year.

I don’t have a tree. The tree to the right is what I wish I had.

My grandchildren are appalled.

My husband is relieved.

My house looks strange. Especially with the ticky-tacky, white-wire-and-gaudy-lights tree that my husband set on the front porch. I can’t complain. After all, I didn’t decorate a tree this year.

Earlier this week I stood in the Pokemon section of Target for over an hour. Who knew a funky little creature called Picachu could create such a blather of major decision-making?

Another half hour in the Star Wars action figure section, and a final half hour in the Tech Deck mini skateboard section.

Yikes! Whatever happened to a ball and jacks?

How many of you women have ever bought a gift for your mother-in-law? Or your sister-in-law -- you know, the SIL who’s related to your HUSBAND? Why is that? How did women come to be the designated gift buyers?

And the designated bakers. And the designated gift wrappers? I mean, are we genetically programmed better than men for these jobs? Is there something about the size of our boobs that creates a physical balance conducive to kneading bread and racing down shopping aisles, children clinging to the cart edges?

When I was a young girl in Germany, I remember my father giggling like a kid the entire Christmas season. Every Christmas Eve around nine in the evening, he’d declare that he was SURE he’d seen Santa Claus creeping out the backdoor, heard his sleigh bells, and smelled the reindeer.

We would all run to the back door, but no, suddenly the man with the bowl-full-of-jelly belly had escaped to the front yard. We’d clamber there. We never noticed my father’s disappearing act until suddenly Dad was right beside us, peering over our shoulders, saying with astonishment, “Darn, we must have just missed him. Maybe next year.”

We returned inside and lo, like the Star shining over Bethlehem, there they were – all the bright, beautiful presents Santa had left!

Dad had a lot of fun with that trick, and we fell for it every year. He couldn’t wait to see the looks on our faces, so he made sure Santa visited before our bedtime. Just like a little boy, he couldn’t wait for Christmas to come.

Mom just looked tired.

My point is, Dad had all the fun, and it wasn’t until years later that I thought to question what Mom was doing while he was whooping it up like a kid. Now I know. She was buying gifts, returning gifts, wrapping gifts, baking cookies, baking rolls, and making candies.

Not that she didn’t enjoy it. She did.

But that’s not the point. The point is what was Dad doing?

I’m convinced Christmas is for men and kids. It’s not that men don’t help; it’s just that they . . . well, they don’t do it as well as women do because they’re reliving their childhood Christmases.

Sure, they put the bikes together, they pull the decorations down from the rafters, and they pay the end-of-year bills.

Sometimes they don’t even complain.

But I don’t see them baking in the kitchen or shopping in the stores – at least not until December 24 when there’s a sudden flurry of testosterone shopping.

There’s a ditty going around the internet called, “Why Men Are Never Depressed.” Apparently, one reason men aren’t depressed is because they “can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes at a truck stop.”

I rest my case.

But the thing about the holidays is they’re supposed to be about giving, not receiving, sacrifice, not greed, right?

It’s not just the shopping and the baking that is the purview of women. They also try to make meaningful traditions for their families so they won’t grow up to be . . . well, selfish.

My daughter Kennan has a few traditions she’s created for her brood of three, four if you count her husband Mike.

They hang stockings, but instead of Santa popping in to fill them up, the family fill each other's stockings with gifts they’ve made, or in the case of four-year-old Gabe, discovered lying around – a drawing, a piece of candy (hence, the lying around), or a “lost” item suddenly found.

Long before Anne Curry made a national production of cutting her hair on NBC, Kennan's daughter Grace cut her waist-length hair and donated it to “Locks of Love," which makes wigs for cancer-striken children. Cutting off that beautiful hair was a sacrifice for her. Oh, probably for Anne, too.

What about you, readers?

Men, do you do your fair share during the holidays?

Women, do you feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the season? How do you handle it?

What are your traditions? Share with us, readers. The best idea, determined by my husband – who is indeed a man – will win a yummy box of See’s candy for your holiday pleasure!