Montana Momoirs
Here's a link to today's column. And for those who don't want to click through, it's posted in full below:
“You have to read the letter Mike wrote to Santa,” my son’s kindergarten teacher told me the other day when I picked Mike up from school. “It’s classic.”
Pasted on his locker among the other letters from his classmates that said things like, “Thank you, Santa, for bringing me presents last year,” and “My sister is always nice to me,” was this letter from my son:
Dear Santa,
My brother Peter has been very bad this year. He hits me and yells and doesn’t share and he also says very bad words. He doesn’t deserve any presents at all. I, on the other hand, have been very good this year. I am trying really hard in school and I also do a good job listening most of the time. For Christmas, I would like the following items ...”
His letter ended with an abbreviated list of the approximately 9,000 things he wants for Christmas this year, most of which have already been detailed in the numerous other letters he’s written to Santa since mid-September.
When I spoke with him about the letter later that day, Mike had absolutely no concerns about sending his brother up the river. Instead, he was worried about what he had written regarding his listening skills. “Do you think Santa knows if I’m lying a little bit?” he asked. “Because I try to listen most of the time but it just doesn’t work very well for me.”
Instead of telling Mike that Santa understands and appreciates all of Mike’s efforts to be good, I said, “Of course he knows you’re lying! If I were you, I’d turn it around and be a good listener so you don’t end up with a lump of coal in your stocking and no presents under the tree!”
Of course both of my boys are enamored with Santa and, as their mother, I find it difficult not to take advantage of that. So as I wield Santa like a weapon, threatening my kids with giant lumps of coal and no gifts, their fascination with present-getting escalates to frantic levels. These boys who are normally happy to build forts out of leftover Costco boxes become obsessed with toys.
With all of the focus on presents and Santa Claus, it’s hard to teach kids that Christmas is supposed to be about giving, a spirit they should carry with them all year. But amazingly, a few years back, this concept was epitomized in our very own lives when our family experienced a veritable Christmas miracle.
It had been a tough year; money was tight and our family had just been through a series of severe illnesses, emergency surgeries and deaths of loved ones, but with Christmas around the corner, our spirits were on the rise.
One evening, just before Christmas, a stranger rang our doorbell. “Are you Sara Groves?” the stranger asked. When I said yes, she said to me, “A friend wanted to be sure that you and your family had a merry Christmas.” As I stood dumbfounded holding open the door, she and another person I had never seen before proceeded to unload several boxes of food, toys, tokens for the carousel, gift certificates for free ice cream, a few hundred dollars in cash, and a gift certificate to a very nice local restaurant.
“Who did this?” I asked her.
“They want to remain anonymous,” she said. “And they want you to have a merry Christmas!”
And so our Christmas that year was indeed very merry. The idea that an anonymous friend had been so generous to us is the epitome of what Christmas and every single day of the year should be about. To this day, I have only a few vague ideas of who our Secret Santa might have been, but I will likely never know for sure. However, I do know that it is a gift I will always treasure and remember and I hope that someday I will be able to do the same thing for a young, struggling family.
This year, however, the wrapping paper and ribbons will fly as Mike and Peter rip open their presents. In spite of Mike’s blatant lies to Santa and Peter’s all too frequent right hooks to his brother’s chin, the boys have been good this year. Mike even used some of his own money to buy Peter a Christmas present because he was so worried that Peter might not get any presents from Santa. And for a 5-year-old, if that’s not the spirit of giving, I don’t know what is. Merry Christmas!Labels: Columns
Here's a link to today's column. And for those who don't want to click through, it's posted in full below:
“You have to read the letter Mike wrote to Santa,” my son’s kindergarten teacher told me the other day when I picked Mike up from school. “It’s classic.”
Pasted on his locker among the other letters from his classmates that said things like, “Thank you, Santa, for bringing me presents last year,” and “My sister is always nice to me,” was this letter from my son:
Dear Santa,
My brother Peter has been very bad this year. He hits me and yells and doesn’t share and he also says very bad words. He doesn’t deserve any presents at all. I, on the other hand, have been very good this year. I am trying really hard in school and I also do a good job listening most of the time. For Christmas, I would like the following items ...”
His letter ended with an abbreviated list of the approximately 9,000 things he wants for Christmas this year, most of which have already been detailed in the numerous other letters he’s written to Santa since mid-September.
When I spoke with him about the letter later that day, Mike had absolutely no concerns about sending his brother up the river. Instead, he was worried about what he had written regarding his listening skills. “Do you think Santa knows if I’m lying a little bit?” he asked. “Because I try to listen most of the time but it just doesn’t work very well for me.”
Instead of telling Mike that Santa understands and appreciates all of Mike’s efforts to be good, I said, “Of course he knows you’re lying! If I were you, I’d turn it around and be a good listener so you don’t end up with a lump of coal in your stocking and no presents under the tree!”
Of course both of my boys are enamored with Santa and, as their mother, I find it difficult not to take advantage of that. So as I wield Santa like a weapon, threatening my kids with giant lumps of coal and no gifts, their fascination with present-getting escalates to frantic levels. These boys who are normally happy to build forts out of leftover Costco boxes become obsessed with toys.
With all of the focus on presents and Santa Claus, it’s hard to teach kids that Christmas is supposed to be about giving, a spirit they should carry with them all year. But amazingly, a few years back, this concept was epitomized in our very own lives when our family experienced a veritable Christmas miracle.
It had been a tough year; money was tight and our family had just been through a series of severe illnesses, emergency surgeries and deaths of loved ones, but with Christmas around the corner, our spirits were on the rise.
One evening, just before Christmas, a stranger rang our doorbell. “Are you Sara Groves?” the stranger asked. When I said yes, she said to me, “A friend wanted to be sure that you and your family had a merry Christmas.” As I stood dumbfounded holding open the door, she and another person I had never seen before proceeded to unload several boxes of food, toys, tokens for the carousel, gift certificates for free ice cream, a few hundred dollars in cash, and a gift certificate to a very nice local restaurant.
“Who did this?” I asked her.
“They want to remain anonymous,” she said. “And they want you to have a merry Christmas!”
And so our Christmas that year was indeed very merry. The idea that an anonymous friend had been so generous to us is the epitome of what Christmas and every single day of the year should be about. To this day, I have only a few vague ideas of who our Secret Santa might have been, but I will likely never know for sure. However, I do know that it is a gift I will always treasure and remember and I hope that someday I will be able to do the same thing for a young, struggling family.
This year, however, the wrapping paper and ribbons will fly as Mike and Peter rip open their presents. In spite of Mike’s blatant lies to Santa and Peter’s all too frequent right hooks to his brother’s chin, the boys have been good this year. Mike even used some of his own money to buy Peter a Christmas present because he was so worried that Peter might not get any presents from Santa. And for a 5-year-old, if that’s not the spirit of giving, I don’t know what is. Merry Christmas!
Labels: Columns
posted by Sara @ 9:28 PM
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