All I Want for Christmas

"Do you know what Christmas is really about?" Tom asked Ben.


"Being greedy and getting lots of presents," Ben replied with a smirk.


I tried to convince myself that his contrary, five-year-old response showed, in a roundabout way, that he knew what the right answer was. Now that Ben's a kindergartener, with his own strong preferences and ideas, we've been trying to be mindful of how we celebrate the holiday season. His smart-alecky answer notwithstanding, he does seem to be learning that the spirit of the holidays involves more than just receiving gifts.


In November, we all made up our Christmas lists. Each one had four sections: 3 things I'd like for Christmas, 3 things I'm going to get other people for Christmas, 3 ways I can help others this Christmas, and 3 things we can do as a family this Christmas. Some of my fondest Christmas memories are the family traditions: making Christmas cookies, playing carols on the piano, going to the Christmas Eve candlelight service, eating sticky buns on Christmas morning.


Ben quickly got into the spirit of the list. When he shared his ways of helping, I was reminded that a 5-year-old has a different perspective on the world than I do; while I see Christmas service as helping anonymous strangers through organizations such as Toys for Tots, he had more direct ideas, such as helping Meg open her presents. He's at the age where he loves secrets, and when he talks about people opening the gifts he picked out, he starts bouncing up and down. I'm just glad to know that, while he can spend hours scrutinizing the Toys R Us catalog to decide what he wants, he is also learning to think of others.