Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Since Bill’s divorce a million years ago, he “got the kids” Christmas Eve. So for years, we drove up to Empire, Colorado – about an hour drive from here – to celebrate Christmas with a fine meal at The Peck House. Eventually, as the kids began having serious relationships and eventually marriages, our numbers outgrew what they could accommodate.

I spent the next few years finding different places where we would dine. Finally, as grandkids came along, we began simply having Christmas Eve dinner and gift opening at our house. I always knew that the day would come when the kids would be unable to join us on Christmas Eve. They might go elsewhere for the holiday. They might want to begin their unique traditions in their own home. Last year was the first year that everyone wasn’t with us on Christmas Eve. I was a bit sad, but I also understood. And it wasn’t like we didn’t see them. We had dinner with one son and his family on December 23, and that worked out just fine.

This year another son and his family will be in Mexico for the holidays. We had dinner at their house last night, and we kicked Christmas off good and right.

I don’t go overboard for Christmas. Our families are blessed with so much, and if there are 20 more toys from Nana and Papa, Mom and Dad’s head might explode. So I have a tradition of each child getting a Christmas ornament, a pair of new pajamas, and two things picked out especially for them. Still, when you multiply that times four kids, we walked into their house last night with what appeared to be an unbelievable number of gifts. The kids nearly jumped out of their skin in anticipation of opening them. They were required to wait until after dinner.

Remember that feeling of joy and excitement when you look at unopened gifts? That package could be anything. I always loved the surprise, so I rarely picked up a present to shake it and study it and try and figure out what it was. Three of the four grandkids last night were more like me, but Alastair (who has a disciplined engineering type of brain anyway), studied each of his presents, gave them a shake, and proceeded to tell me what each present was. He was, of course, correct. To be fair to me, however, two of the gifts are always the same (ornament and pjs), and it’s hard to disguise the contents of a box of Legos when you give it a shake.

Once dinner was finished, gift-opening began. It was a calm operation, choreographed by first-borned Addie. “Oldest to youngest,” proclaimed Addie, to youngest Maggie’s dismay. “Last year we did youngest to oldest,” she added. I’m certain she’s right. She isn’t likely to forget things such as that.

There was noise and proclamations of joy and tossing of wrapping paper as the kids opened their gifts. Each one stopped only to put on their new pajamas, which, I’m happy to say, all fit perfectly. Delightful Dagny proclaimed hers to be the “most comfortable pajamas I’ve ever had.”

The remainder of the night was spent getting started on building the White House out of Legos and making bracelets out of little rubber loops, using the Rainbow Loom. Addie took all of the things out of her old and broken backpack that she’s had since Kindergarten and put them in her new LL Bean backpack. Maggie played with her doll until bedtime.

I kissed them all as they went up to bed, and did the same to Dave and Jll as we left for home, knowing we wouldn’t see them for a long time. I was pretty good until we got into the car, and then I blubbered all the way home. “You can come back here anytime,” Bill kept saying.

And as I said yesterday, thank goodness for modern technology, because there is also Facetime and email.

I have one quick story about something that happened yesterday and gave me pause for thought.

I stopped at a very nice restaurant near our house to buy my very last Christmas gift – a gift card. The bartender who took care of my business was very nice, but our interaction was fairly quick. Later, after I was home a bit, I received a telephone call from my credit card company telling me that they had received a call from Rob at an unnamed restaurant, who was calling to report that he had my credit card, and could they contact me and let me know. Sure enough, Rob was the nice young bartender who had helped me with my purchase.

Here’s the thing. I frequently purchase gift cards from restaurants, and when I do, I always struggle with the blank line for the tip. I’m a generous tipper when it comes to restaurant servers because I have worked in the restaurant business and many of my children, nieces and nephews have served or do serve food for a living. But when it comes to leaving a tip for something like a gift card purchase, I am never sure what to do. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. But yesterday the bartender seemed nice enough, and it is close enough to Christmas that I thought, what the heck. I added a generous tip and thought nothing more about it.

When I picked up my card from Rob-the-Bartender, I thanked him heartily for going over and above what he needed to do to get my card back to me. After all, he could have just given it to the manager to hold until such time as I realized my card was missing. He accepted my thanks graciously, and added, “You were nice enough to tip me when most people don’t, so I thought I could be helpful back to you.”

What goes around, comes around.