I don’t know about you but I have had a fabulous year!I know, I know, we typically take a look back in January or during that overstuffed week after the holidays, but I just can’t help myself. This is truly the year for reflection and for scaling back on that holiday, over-expenditure indulgence before it’s too late. With the price of gas increasing despite what the news keeps telling us: (I’m a diesal gal and it’s up to $2.65 again! I don’t know how you farmers do it!) The grocery bills have doubled since this time last year and the Christmas “junk” has been on the shelves since late September! Now is the time to slow down and take account of our good forturne, to be thankful, and to give instead of spend.
Let the shopping frenzy cease and focus on being together, share the great stories, bake with the “sistas”, brag about the one that got away, watch a great game or whatever without spending ridiculous amounts of money on gifts that the kids forget about and the adults exchange. Who out there has trouble finding room for their children’s or grand children’s toys? Wouldn’t most of us agree that we simply don’t need anymore?
Grandma Simanek used to give us each a new pair of socks with a two or five dollar bill stuffed inside. That was it. The socks were great, but I have no memory of their color and I don’t know what happened to the money, what I do remember about the Simanek Christmas of my childhood is the smell of “peppernuts”, the crunch of the “rosettes”, and the never ending sea of kolaches cooling in Grandma’s kitchen throughout the month of December.
For some reason, Grandma made incredible amounts of peppernuts and kolaches toward the close of each year. She gave us gallon buckets of the crunchy, anise cookies and she froze the kolaches to pull out and rewarm; in the oven, not a microwave, whenever we came to visit. I’m a little older now and I cherish a few of her recipe cards, penned in her hand, placed prominently on the insides of my cupboard doors. My daughter Justice always anxiously asks when we are going to put up the tree and decorations. When a toy catalog comes, she will thumb through it, but what she drives me most crazy with are the questions like: “When are we going to watch Christmas movies and make the peppernuts mom?” “Am I old enough to mix the batter this year?” “What colors of frosting are we going to use on the rosettes?” “What gift are we going to make for everyone this year?” Her excitement about these things are my most treasured Christmas presents.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that we need to ask ourselves if we should reconsider that Saturday where we take our kids to the sitter, yet another day this week, so we can “Christmas” shop for them. Maybe they would rather we spend that Saturday at home….doing somehting more fun, more memorable, and more affordable than buying meaningless gifts that those little recipients soon toss aside.
Wouldn’t it be great to be sitting here after the holidays, reflecting upon the entire year, and looking forward to the next without having to worry about the credit card bill accumulated over the next few weeks? And though it’s not appropriate to pat oneself on the back, we could also reflect on all of the “giving” we were in the position to do…some ideas for you: Give an unsuspecting neighbor a plate of festively decorated sugar cookies, give a couple of quarters and a few kind words to every bell ringer you pass, give a call to a friend you haven’t spoken to in years, give a Christmas card to someone you’ve had a falling out with, give blood, give your time to your children, give a stupid joke to a tired and frazzled cashier at a busy department store and make her laugh in spite herself, give a hug to a co-worker, give a phone card to an active duty soldier, give actual eye-contact to people you give a “Hello” to each day, give a warm , cozy sweater to a child without one, give a freshly plowed driveway to your snowed-in neighbor, give a cup of hot chocolate to the person on the other side of your cubicle at work, give your voice to a needy choir, give your shoulder to someone who needs one, give your love to your family unconditionally; you get the idea. I can almost guarantee these “gifts” won’t be tossed aside and forgotten like so many of the toys we so frivolously buy and buy and buy.
Speaking of buying….I hope I can control myself….I do really well with this concept and then I panic right before Christmas. So …..if you see me running feverishly around Gordmans or Target on the 24th….holler at me and remind me of what I wrote!
Happy Holidays Everyone!
—North Bend Eagle 13 Dec 2006