One of my beliefs, partly from my experience of having Santa as my dad, is that for kids, getting their heart’s desire for christmas is an affirming experience of being loved. This meme of a mom who spoils her kids with too many presents notwithstanding, I suspect the urge to satisfy our kids’ wishes is pretty irrepressible. Satisfying our offsprings needs is after all the essence, and almost definition, of parenting.
Balance in all things, of course, but in my experience the wish lists of most kids, the demands they share in Santa’s ear at the mall, and the things they openly request as gifts, are rarely extravagant. They are often a toy de jour, or an effort at keeping up with the joneses in their social circles. Generally somewhere on the list will be something they actually want and which will be very satisfying for them. The trick as a parent at any time of the year is not to be slavish to their every whim, but more than just meeting their needs, is to also respect and satisfy their desires. Of course they rarely have much real knowledge of what spurs those desires.
During my dad’s Hobby Stop Santa period, my sisters and I had carte blanche at the toy store. We were essentially free to pick anything we wanted and be assured we would receive it. This had almost always felt like a real xmas miracle to me. In fact the remnants of a couple of those gifts, my Erector Set case, the little swiss gear-train set, still decorate my apartment, having been lovingly carried by me for half a century as a reminder of that time and my dad’s love.
We had seen an ad on some cartoon show for a board game called Shmo. It had mechanical parts and looked hysterically fun in the commercial. We demanded it as a joint gift, but Santa had checked it out, had seen that it was shoddily made, judged that it was not much more than a prop for a commercial, and he was certain we would become quickly bored with it, if it even survived that long. He argued against it so vigorously we were pretty sure he wouldn’t get it for us. But he did!
We were so grateful and excited and set it up immediately on xmas morning. Of course he was right. One or two laps around the board was all it took. There was no real arc to the game, it was just rolling a die (I think) moving around and and landing on squares that had some little joke. Reading the the joke once or twice was enough, and it quickly grew boring; I’m not sure we ever set it up again. The whole episode was an important epiphany for me about desire and the illusory power of not only anticipation, but advertising. I don’t recall if he rubbed in an I-told-you-so, he certainly didn’t need to as the lesson was so obvious.
Happy Generosity!!!
HOLLY DAYS 