Gifts and Giving

As of today, it’s  been more than two months since my last post.  I’m really sorry; I want to keep up better, but… haven’t.  There are a lot of reasons for it, none of them are terribly important, so I’m gonna skip the excuses and just say what I want to write about. :)

There are a TON of things that I’ve wanted to write blog posts about since my last one.  That’s part of the problem — I can never decide between all of my ideas to just sit down and write one.  Several things have happened in the last few days that have highlighted one particular theme, though, so it seems like time.  I started this blog with the goal of exploring my values, of trying to figure out what really is and isn’t important to me.  With the onset of Christmas and gift lists, I’ve been looking at some of those values.

My parents alays wanted me to write them a list of things I’d like to get for Christmas (that I’d like “Santa” to get me for Christmas).  That’s never a problem for a kid; most of them were several pages long, typed.  Eventually, the lists got smaller but the presents got bigger.  I was fine with that.  At some point, my parents just knew what I wanted and I got it.  It was exciting, I still loved opening gifts even if I could pretty well guess what was in them.  It wasn’t until I got married that I started having to make Christmas gift lists again.

My inlaws (and their entire family) takes the Christmas gift-giving thing seriously.  Not because they care about the stuff, but because it’s a big part of their family tradition.  They like giving, and sharing.  And they brought me in to that tradition as soon as I was part of the family — probably even earlier, actually.  It’s really nice, honestly.

This year has been a little harder for list-making, though.  They wanted my list pretty early on, which isn’t unreasonable, but I’ve spent so much time at home lately that I feel like my house is already too cluttered with unnecessary things and that I have too much stuff.  There were a few obvious choices for my list — you know, things like the last movie of a trilogy when I already own the first two — but I had a genuinely difficult time coming up with purchasable/craftable/giveable.  I’m not really even playing video games much anymore, so there weren’t really any games to put on my list, and that’s my old standby! :)

I found this year that I really just… don’t want any more stuff, or the only things I want are biiiig gifts that require significant amounts of saving.  Every time I would ask myself, “Okay, Nathan, what do you want?”  The answers were always things like, “money” or “a house” or “to know about that job I’m still waiting to hear about” or “time to do all the things I feel like I have to get done” or “children” or “the chance to choose what to do with an afternoon and play games for no good reason.”  But those aren’t things you can put on a Christmas gift list, even though I know my family would give me any of those things in a heartbeat if they could.

The things that are on my list now are… different.  When you’ve literally laid in bed and asked God why you have to go through the things you’re going through, it really changes the things that seem important to you.  I don’t need movies or books or games on my shelves (although shelves might not be a bad gift idea, since I do have so much stuff to put on them already!); in fact, I don’t really want many of these things because they just take up the little bit of space left in our apartment.

All I want is to sleep in the same bed as my wife, to play games and hang out with my friends, and not to have to worry about paying next month’s bills.  Responsible things; useful things; “grown-up” things, and very intangible things.  But those things don’t go on Christmas lists.  Those are the things that I value, but they aren’t things that can be given or purchased.

I tried to find some things for everyone, because I really do like that generosity and giving are important parts of my family’s culture.  Renee was a big help in expanding the list, but I’m pretty sure the list came up short even still.  I’m sorry.  So for those of you who might be (or might end up) shopping for me — I want you to know that I really, really don’t care about the stuff, if you’re having a hard time.  I do care about you, and your life, and our relationship, and all the gifts we share with each other that just… aren’t giftable.