Opinion: A Simple Christmas
December 25, 2019
Christmas has a lot of different meanings for a lot of different people. Everyone has their traditions, from picking out their tree at their favorite tree farm or hardware store, to the films and t.v. specials that play in the background as they dig through piles of presents.
When I was growing up, I always thought that Christmas was about extravagance. I thought that the season meant dropping all the cash you could be expected to willingly part with on making your home, wardrobe and presents the absolute best. I thought that it meant a gigantic, power-outage-causing festival of lights atop your house and a pile of presents adorning the living room floor so massive that even Scrooge McDuck would have a difficult time wading through it.
I thought these things because they were things that I never really had. My family never had what you would call an extravagant Christmas.
In my dad’s home, I was the oldest of four kids and when it came to supporting us financially, my dad was a solo act. My stepmom, who I am endlessly thankful for, attended college part time and spent the rest of her time at home taking care of us. My folks struggled.
For a long time, I wasn’t really aware of that fact. For 90 percent of the year, I felt like any other kid growing up in Butterfield. There was always food on the table, gas in the car and something on the t.v. When it came to Christmas, however, the difference became readily apparent to me.
I was 16 years old before I ever went to a Christmas tree farm to get a real tree. In my family, my stepmom had bought a very nice, very large plastic and metal tree before she met my dad.
Every year, the Friday after Thanksgiving, when we would all still be home from school, my parents would drag that behemoth from its yearly resting place in the garage and spend an hour or so assembling it. Every year, the colored pieces on the tree that let you know how to assemble it grew more and more faded and, in direct proportion, my dad’s frustration at putting it together grew as well.
I once spent Christmas with a family who had a special set of ornaments that they used to decorate the tree when they knew that they would have guests for Christmas. That particular box of ornaments was referred to as “the nice ones”.
That wasn’t how my family operated at all. Regardless of who would and wouldn’t be there for the holidays, my family has the same box of ornaments on the tree every year. New additions always make an appearance, but at its core, that box of ornaments is like opening a window into the Christmases of the past.
Every year I see the old favorites: the handmade globes; the popsicle stick reindeer; a variety of ornaments with our names and the year hand painted on them from various art classes; and my personal favorite, a Bass Pro rainbow trout ornament that my uncle gave me, despite me never having been interested in fishing.
It’s a strange collection, to be sure, but every single one of those ornaments tells a story. Every poorly-aligned snowman and misshapen Santa face was a snapshot of where my sisters, my brother and myself were in our lives. Every worn-out sparkling star and icicle dripping craft glitter tells the tale of a band or school club fundraiser that my parents bought into to help us kids and our friends out.
My family never went on vacation for Christmas, either. To this day, I’ve never not spent at least a majority of Christmas day in Barry County. In fact, in all my 25 years on this Earth, I’ve done the exact same thing every single Christmas. I spend the morning opening the presents under the tree, at first with my parents and then with my own kids when I got older. Then, after we’ve cleared the wrapping paper and I’m 2-3 cups of coffee with peppermint creamer into the morning, we all pile into the car to go see my grandma.
Now, I know that a lot of you have an image of what going to your grandma’s house on Christmas looks like. I’m sure that more than a few of you are picturing itchy sweaters with kitschy snowmen and Santas, cards stuffed with 20’s and a dinner spread right out of a Hallmark Christmas movie.
That’s not my family at all. That’s not my grandma at all.
My grandma is and was a hippie. She’s worn a flannel and t-shirt every day of my life for as long as I can remember. She doesn’t give us cash for Christmas, either. In fact, for a long time we didn’t even have anything from her under the tree.
For years, she bought us all savings bonds. Over and over again, I’d hear about how valuable they would be once they had time to mature and that I’d be really thankful for them some day. That’s a hard lesson for a 10-year old to swallow.
Then, there’s the cheesecake.
You see, when my family and the rest of my grandma’s kids get together at Christmas, we’re actually celebrating two occasions. Christmas is also my dad’s birthday, and just for him, my stepmom always makes him what she refers to as her “$20 cheesecake”. It has a handmade graham cracker and almond crust and is made with the finest cream cheese that her grocery budget can handle.
From the time I was about 10 years old, my family’s Christmas always seemed strange to me. It always seemed like everyone else really went out of their way to put on a spectacle for Christmas and we just put up the same old, constantly-wearing-out decorations that we always had. Everyone else always dressed up and bragged that their grandparents were lining their pockets with Playstations and Christmas cash, but my family wore what we always wear and my grandma had me thinking about financial responsibility.
Then, a funny thing happened. I had kids of my own and now, I see our family’s traditions for what they really are: comfort and joy.
We put up that plastic tree and those same old ornaments because that’s what we had. We liked them and had for years. Those ornaments were our stories, and that tree had stood the test of time better than anything else that we have ever owned.
We didn’t get all fancied up and spend hours agonizing over what food we were going to make because we knew that no one in our family was going to judge us for wanting to feel comfortable.
Another thing of note: as frustrated as 12-year old me was about hearing how much more valuable my savings bonds were after another year, 22-year old me was overjoyed when they helped me get a new car and a laptop for school.
Christmas means a lot of things to a lot of people. For some, it means really going all out on making their spirit in the season known to others. For other folks, it means traveling to see family or to get away from the world.
To me, Christmas will always mean the same old decorations that I’ve been seeing since grade school. It’s the same old clothes that I wore the week before and the same old argument that my dad and my uncle get into about which Star Trek captain is the most superior. It’s the smell of my aunt making our third pot of coffee of the evening and the sight of my brother hanging out with her in the kitchen because he’s not a fan of crowds.
Even now, as half of my parent’s kids have moved out and started their own families, we’re still putting up the same plastic tree and watching the same Charlie Brown special when it comes on cable.
Maybe someday, if I’m lucky, it’ll be my kids watching me grumble while I’m putting together the tree. Maybe, if I play my cards right, they’ll see the value in a $20 cheesecake and a grandmother who teaches them to be responsible with their cash. Maybe, if everything goes according to plan, they too will come to learn the joy of a simple Christmas.
Vinnie Roberts is a reporter for the Barry County Advertiser and Barry County native.
Christmas has a lot of different meanings for a lot of different people. Everyone has their traditions, from picking out their tree at their favorite tree farm or hardware store, to the films and t.v. specials that play in the background as they dig through piles of presents.
When I was growing up, I always thought that Christmas was about extravagance. I thought that the season meant dropping all the cash you could be expected to willingly part with on making your home, wardrobe and presents the absolute best. I thought that it meant a gigantic, power-outage-causing festival of lights atop your house and a pile of presents adorning the living room floor so massive that even Scrooge McDuck would have a difficult time wading through it.
I thought these things because they were things that I never really had. My family never had what you would call an extravagant Christmas.
In my dad’s home, I was the oldest of four kids and when it came to supporting us financially, my dad was a solo act. My stepmom, who I am endlessly thankful for, attended college part time and spent the rest of her time at home taking care of us. My folks struggled.
For a long time, I wasn’t really aware of that fact. For 90 percent of the year, I felt like any other kid growing up in Butterfield. There was always food on the table, gas in the car and something on the t.v. When it came to Christmas, however, the difference became readily apparent to me.
I was 16 years old before I ever went to a Christmas tree farm to get a real tree. In my family, my stepmom had bought a very nice, very large plastic and metal tree before she met my dad.
Every year, the Friday after Thanksgiving, when we would all still be home from school, my parents would drag that behemoth from its yearly resting place in the garage and spend an hour or so assembling it. Every year, the colored pieces on the tree that let you know how to assemble it grew more and more faded and, in direct proportion, my dad’s frustration at putting it together grew as well.
I once spent Christmas with a family who had a special set of ornaments that they used to decorate the tree when they knew that they would have guests for Christmas. That particular box of ornaments was referred to as “the nice ones”.
That wasn’t how my family operated at all. Regardless of who would and wouldn’t be there for the holidays, my family has the same box of ornaments on the tree every year. New additions always make an appearance, but at its core, that box of ornaments is like opening a window into the Christmases of the past.
Every year I see the old favorites: the handmade globes; the popsicle stick reindeer; a variety of ornaments with our names and the year hand painted on them from various art classes; and my personal favorite, a Bass Pro rainbow trout ornament that my uncle gave me, despite me never having been interested in fishing.
It’s a strange collection, to be sure, but every single one of those ornaments tells a story. Every poorly-aligned snowman and misshapen Santa face was a snapshot of where my sisters, my brother and myself were in our lives. Every worn-out sparkling star and icicle dripping craft glitter tells the tale of a band or school club fundraiser that my parents bought into to help us kids and our friends out.
My family never went on vacation for Christmas, either. To this day, I’ve never not spent at least a majority of Christmas day in Barry County. In fact, in all my 25 years on this Earth, I’ve done the exact same thing every single Christmas. I spend the morning opening the presents under the tree, at first with my parents and then with my own kids when I got older. Then, after we’ve cleared the wrapping paper and I’m 2-3 cups of coffee with peppermint creamer into the morning, we all pile into the car to go see my grandma.
Now, I know that a lot of you have an image of what going to your grandma’s house on Christmas looks like. I’m sure that more than a few of you are picturing itchy sweaters with kitschy snowmen and Santas, cards stuffed with 20’s and a dinner spread right out of a Hallmark Christmas movie.
That’s not my family at all. That’s not my grandma at all.
My grandma is and was a hippie. She’s worn a flannel and t-shirt every day of my life for as long as I can remember. She doesn’t give us cash for Christmas, either. In fact, for a long time we didn’t even have anything from her under the tree.
For years, she bought us all savings bonds. Over and over again, I’d hear about how valuable they would be once they had time to mature and that I’d be really thankful for them some day. That’s a hard lesson for a 10-year old to swallow.
Then, there’s the cheesecake.
You see, when my family and the rest of my grandma’s kids get together at Christmas, we’re actually celebrating two occasions. Christmas is also my dad’s birthday, and just for him, my stepmom always makes him what she refers to as her “$20 cheesecake”. It has a handmade graham cracker and almond crust and is made with the finest cream cheese that her grocery budget can handle.
From the time I was about 10 years old, my family’s Christmas always seemed strange to me. It always seemed like everyone else really went out of their way to put on a spectacle for Christmas and we just put up the same old, constantly-wearing-out decorations that we always had. Everyone else always dressed up and bragged that their grandparents were lining their pockets with Playstations and Christmas cash, but my family wore what we always wear and my grandma had me thinking about financial responsibility.
Then, a funny thing happened. I had kids of my own and now, I see our family’s traditions for what they really are: comfort and joy.
We put up that plastic tree and those same old ornaments because that’s what we had. We liked them and had for years. Those ornaments were our stories, and that tree had stood the test of time better than anything else that we have ever owned.
We didn’t get all fancied up and spend hours agonizing over what food we were going to make because we knew that no one in our family was going to judge us for wanting to feel comfortable.
Another thing of note: as frustrated as 12-year old me was about hearing how much more valuable my savings bonds were after another year, 22-year old me was overjoyed when they helped me get a new car and a laptop for school.
Christmas means a lot of things to a lot of people. For some, it means really going all out on making their spirit in the season known to others. For other folks, it means traveling to see family or to get away from the world.
To me, Christmas will always mean the same old decorations that I’ve been seeing since grade school. It’s the same old clothes that I wore the week before and the same old argument that my dad and my uncle get into about which Star Trek captain is the most superior. It’s the smell of my aunt making our third pot of coffee of the evening and the sight of my brother hanging out with her in the kitchen because he’s not a fan of crowds.
Even now, as half of my parent’s kids have moved out and started their own families, we’re still putting up the same plastic tree and watching the same Charlie Brown special when it comes on cable.
Maybe someday, if I’m lucky, it’ll be my kids watching me grumble while I’m putting together the tree. Maybe, if I play my cards right, they’ll see the value in a $20 cheesecake and a grandmother who teaches them to be responsible with their cash. Maybe, if everything goes according to plan, they too will come to learn the joy of a simple Christmas.
Vinnie Roberts is a reporter for the Barry County Advertiser and Barry County native.