This is our first Christmas without Kevin’s parents, and it’s sad. We’re trying to find the joy, but I know both Kevin and I are feeling the loss.
Stockings were Ann’s thing — the tradition we got from her (I don’t know if she started it, or if she got it from her family or Ron’sā¦), and she was super-organized about it, making sure that everyone had the same number of little presents in their stockings, assigning people to get various things, making sure they were all wrapped and distributed. (Stockings aren’t something my family did when I was growing up.)
Stockings are one of my favorite Christmas traditions, because you don’t spend a lot of money, but you get lots of fun of unwrapping presents, and expectations are low — everyone knows they’re likely to get some dried fruit, or some colorful paperclips, or something useful (Kevin got everyone portable chargers one year). There’s generally a clementine in the toe (but Kavi doesn’t like oranges, so we skipped hers this year.)
There was some laughter and some joy, even though we were missing his parents. The items weren’t evenly distributed (sorry, Ann!), but the kids had more than the adults, which did somehow happen most years anyway, despite all her efforts, and is just fine.
We asked the kids to actually buy stocking gifts this year, now that they’re 15 and 17 — usually, when we were doing Christmas with Kevin’s family, the grown-ups just handled all the stockings. I believe I said something like: “Mommy will have a stocking, and if it’s empty, Mommy will be sad.” They laughed.
They picked up a few things for each of us — I got BBQ worms (gah, but I will try them, because I’ve given them insect treats in the past (I think it was chocolate-covered crickets?)) and a mini-slinky from them, fun. Kevin got me a replacement charging cable for my Fitbit (which I really wanted and had been having trouble finding) and a variety of dried fruit. š (Technically, stocking gifts are from Santa and are unsigned, but we usually know at least some of who gave what.)
Favorite moment — when Anand said: “I guess the fun of waiting for everyone else to open their presents is waiting to see them react to what you got them.” It was a revelation for him. Yes, kiddo — that’s a lot of the joy of the holiday.
Ron and Ann would have liked seeing Anand come to that realization. They took so much joy in their grandchildren. It’s comforting, knowing parts of them live on in our kids.
“Sometimes you can’t give back. You just have to give on.”
“That’s the purpose of Winterfair, I think. To teach you how to give on. Being Father Frost is the end-game, isn’t it?”
“I think so.”
“I’m getting it figured out.”
Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance
