James and Zachary, Ho ho ho!
Thank you so much for the yummy milk and cookies. They were the best ever. I remember visiting you last year while you were asleep at Give Kids the World. You both looked very happy and your mom and dad and sister Danielle were all fast asleep as well.
I read your gift lists for this year. Wow! I arrived at your house, and couldn’t tell where to put some of your new presents because you have so many toys already! There were toys in every room!
You are both very special to me, to Mrs. Claus and to all of the elves. You’re so special that I would like you to have gifts and enjoy Christmas all year long. First I need you to both to be my helpers and give your loneliest toys to other children. Remember you have to make room for new toys by gifting and sharing some of the old ones. See you next year. Merry Christmas!
Santa
My mother, grandmother and great grandmother have been close - on my mind and in my heart - as I’ve compared the challenges I face now with their experiences across generations. They were personally impacted by Reconstruction, World Wars I and II, the Great Depression, and Jim Crow segregation and faced hardships with faith, courage and grace while I’m just experiencing a dry spell and waiting for rain. No my grandmother’s stern direction and exacting expectations did not feel kind and gentle to me as a child. But I remember and live in the context of her guidance and example and I can now laugh at small things, including people, that once unnerved me. This season, I am giving thanks for the lesson inherent in financial boundaries and limitations.
I remember my granddaughter’s disappointment that our family would spend Christmas 2013 in New York City - eight of us. She said traveling meant that she wouldn’t get many presents. My daughter explained gently, « Niyah, I know you don’t realize it or understand yet, but going to New York City with your family for Christmas is a very big present. » The girls went ice skating at Rockefeller Center. Another day, they spilled their hot chocolate with whipped cream from Dean and Delucca all over themselves before going to a walking tour at the Metropolitan Museum. We had hot dogs from a truck vendor outside the Museum, not the $2 street meat with onions and heart burn that I have had too many time when eating on a budget, but huge, juicy Kosher franks on bun - with onions! Best hot dogs I have ever had in New York City and everyone agreed as we stood eating quietly near the stairs. Then Mauriyonna dropped hers on the sidewalk! « Awww man Mauriyonna, » my son-in-law said to the five year old. He wasn’t happy about it but he gave her his to finish. I felt empathy and compassion as we all continued eating as if nothing had happened. No one else offered to share. In that moment, she was his child alone!
Inside the museum, the girls had fun drawing images of the artifacts on exhibit as the spirits encircled us all. The tour guide mispronounced « Yoruba » like « Aruba » and while correcting her in my head, I let it slide and shared the correction with my girls later.
Around age 9 or 10, my eldest son, the Artist formerly known as « Stephen» checked in with me to confirm that Santa didn’t exist. « No Stephen, there’s no Santa. » He responded, « So you lied. »
Ouch.
My mother didn’t like holidays and observed Christmas modestly with a small table top tree from Katz and Bestoff and a few small gifts. My grandmother went all out for me with multicolor lights strung along the gutters, lighted candle wreaths in every window, and a six foot artificial pine tree from Sears that lived in the attic rafters most of the year. Those early childhood memories of itching after lacing angel hair on fake pine branches resurface now. My grandmother had warned me, but my fascination with what looked like white cotton candy baited and hooked me every single year until we threw away the tree and ornaments, likely after the storm of 2005.
This year I have been preoccupied with my Christmas conundrum from Black Friday « sales » after Thanksgiving through the boys’ lengthy Christmas lists for Santa. I have struggled with my children’s expectations for Christmas - tree, presents, holiday lights, and Revillion dinner (yes that last one is mine) - against the reality of checking account balances, credit card and energy bills balanced with the grace of feeling a bit better that, repurposed, the tree placed on the curb would help to rebuild the wetlands.
Remind me again, how have we arrived at this situation with the wetlands that requires us to fix them by growing, cutting down, purchasing and recycling evergreen trees? And another thing, we’re still paying Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans $24 per month, for what used to be biweekly trash and recycling pickup. Service has been once a week for a long time now. Nobody has mentioned a refund or cutting that fee in half. And who knows where all this recycling goes? Has anybody checked? For all I know most of it may end up in the same landfill in Mississippi with our trucked out solid waste products from sewerage processing. Clearly I digress; but I’m just saying.
One of my son Gladney’s friends pledged her devotion after he shared my seafood and sausage gumbo leftovers with her a month ago. She asked him to ask me if I’d be willing to make seafood gumbo for her parents who arrive on Monday. He conveyed my shopping list to her and later in the day she dropped off ingredients, storage containers and a very nice bottle of Malbec. My husband thanked me for his Christmas gift, the wine, and the next day she returned delighted to pick up two gallons of gumbo. It wasn’t my best but it was good. I made a roux and usually I make my own stock but used boxed seafood stock instead, this time, as a short cut. Sara offered a container to me to keep for our family and I pointed to the pot on the stove that held another gallon. We had plenty including the quart taken out for Jamie before adding crabmeat at the end. (It mystifies me - to have given birth to a child, in New Orleans of all places, who has no seafood allergy but dislikes lump crabmeat.) Sara had to wait for the bridge after leaving our house and texted me to say that the gumbo was wonderful. The smell filled her car as she waited and she couldn’t resist having a taste!
Preparing food at her request for her Italian and Japanese parents was a gift and a blessing to my family. Helping a friend in Tucson by connecting her with an old friend, a mechanic who specializes in BMWs was a gift. Receiving Luminarium tickets and sharing with three friends attending LunaFête was a gift. Attending an awards event at the New Orleans African American Museum with my son, celebrating my artist friend’s success and seeing friends for the first time in years was a gift.
This year, I am stopping just shy of going full out Grinch, the early years, but this season we will pivot to transform our clandestine holiday operation away from last minute Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Lakeside mall shopping and frantic late night gift wrapping sessions. I’m giving the adult sibling elves, and our Subaru and Dodge Caravan reindeer the holidays off. I’ve pulled out my fountain pen and planner, (thanks to https://baronfig.com/), and already scheduled events for our first of two holiday weeks. We will be creative within the boundaries of the abundance that we already have at hand. If the third time is a charm and our new stove is actually delivered on Tuesday, Zach has baking plans starting with gingerbread cookies and brownies. We won’t use his PlayDoh cutters for the dough but appreciate his offering.
We have scheduled driving through the lights at Celebration in the Oaks, having lunch at Crazy Hot Pot, visiting a friend and La Boulangerie, crafting gifts from our store of art supplies, listening to holiday music and watching holiday movies at home as a family, complete with popcorn and treats. I’ll string the lights along the fence today and illuminate them to welcome us home when we return late from the bonfires and fireworks in Lutcher, LA on Christmas Eve. We have accepted separate brunch and dinner invitations with family and friends on Christmas.
I have been Santa for over 40 years and my mothers for decades before - riding along unconsciously, unquestioningly - to fill an experience of void in our hearts, under the guise of a spirit of giving and « making the children happy », while simultaneously shrinking under the weighty guilt of not being enough; not having enough; being less than. I take my power and agency back from the default to holiday consumerism. Small is beautiful. Less is more. This season my heart is full and glad because ours is a good life.
Wishing a sustainable Christmas to all and to all a good night!
