Making New Traditions

This past week has been very busy! I'm sure everyone's in the same boat. We made chocolate bark, decorated sugar cookies, shopped for food, crafted our Christmas dinner menu, finished decorating, wrapped presents, shopped for more food, welcomed guests, and ate enough sugar to sink the Titanic. And it isn't even Christmas yet!

Josh's parents, sister, and grandmother are visiting us this week, and we're really enjoying the company. Papa is working on another remodeling project (this time, the master bathroom), and Grandma brought enough fun projects to keep Kaden busy for a few weeks. Papa and Grandma see who can keep Kaden's attention the longest. So far, hammers and drills are enough to distract him from sugar cookies (Is he really my son?!).

Since this is the first year that Kaden can really dialogue about Christmas and start to grasp what it's all about, I've been thinking a lot about family traditions and how we want to celebrate the day. It seems hard to balance the present factor (me-me-me) with the fact that Christmas is really a celebration of Christ's birth.

One thing that we're doing this year came from a forward I received from a friend. Here it is:


SIMPLE WHITE ENVELOPE

It's just a small white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.

It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas --oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it-- the overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma -- the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else.

Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties, and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended. Shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church.

These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford.

Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat! .

Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them." Mike loved kids -- all kids -- and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball, and lacrosse.

That's when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church.

On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas this at year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition -- one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning, and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.

As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn't end there. You see, we lost Mike last year due to cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning it was joined by three more. Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope.

Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us. May we all remember Christ, who is the reason for the season, and the true Christmas spirit this year and always.

I love this idea. Giving instead of receiving. Others instead of me. I think it honors Christ's birthday and the way he lived his life in a way I've never done before and in a way I want to teach my kids. Are there presents under our tree? Yes, of course. But there will also be a white envelope on our tree this year...to remind us that we're not just here on this earth for us. I hope this story may inspire some of you, too.

From our house to yours, Merry Christmas!

Christmastime is Here Again!

Well, it's Christmas in the Hesse house. We started decorating our tree a few days before Thanksgiving, and we finished it about 2 days ago. [Yes, it took us a week just to decorate it. We had to do it in small spurts to work around the kiddos.] As you can see from the pictures, the tree is currently presentless, but that problem will quickly be remedied when a certain minivan from New York carrying 2 grandparents, 1 great-grandparent, and 1 aunt arrives before Christmas Day.

You may not believe it, but Santa actually loans a few of his reindeer to the Hesses since these world travelers are used to carrying sleighs full of presents for every child in the universe. Yes, we're talking a lot of presents. As in, "We each brought 2 sets of clothes...and the rest is all presents." Plus, I'm sure a few presents will find their way under the tree even before they arrive. It's great to have doting grandparents and great-grandparents, and we're fortunate to have many on both sides of the family. And for more reasons than just Christmas presents, of course!


Back to the issue at hand -- the tree. I'm posting two pics here so you can see it in all its glory. Yes, it's artificial. I know, I know -- where's the authentic Christmas spirit in an artificial tree?! But for those of us with sensitive skin and a weird allergy to evergreens, my skin and lungs thank me for insisting on a fake tree. Plus, no water bowl to keep the kids out of! Josh and I both like that little perk. Maybe one of these years when the kids are older and could enjoy a tree-hunting trip to find the perfect tree I will try to tolerate a live tree again. But for now, it's fake all the way.

My husband says I'm a scrooge, and compared to him, yes...it is true. However, I am really enjoying the twinkling lights and listening to Christmas music on the radio and looking forward to sharing Christ's birthday with my family. Christmas is in the air!

Calling All True Loves...

Get ready to shell out $18,920 for your twelve-day Christmas extravaganza this year! For all those True Loves inspired by "The Twelve Days of Christmas" song, you can expect to shell out over 3 percent more than last year for your milking maids and piping pipers. Here's a little glimpse from the PNC Wealth Management press release announcing the news:

22nd ANNUAL PNC CHRISTMAS PRICE INDEX UP 3 PERCENT; DANCERS, DRUMMERS AND PIPERS EARN MORE IN TIGHT LABOR MARKET

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 27, 2006 – Historically low unemployment is making it more expensive to give the gift of live entertainment this year, according to the PNC Christmas Price Index. The tongue-in-cheek economic analysis by PNC Wealth Management is based on the cost of gifts in the holiday classic, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

According to the 22nd annual survey, the cost of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is $18,920 in 2006, a 3.1 percent increase over last year. Gift prices mirrored the U.S. government’s Consumer Price Index – a widely used measure of inflation calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As part of its annual tradition, PNC Wealth Management also tabulates the “True Cost of Christmas,” which is the total cost of items gifted by a True Love who repeats all of the song’s verses. This holiday season, very generous True Loves will pay more than ever before – $75,122 – for all 364 items, up from $72,608 in 2005. This 3.5 percent increase is substantially less than last year’s 9.5 percent increase. Kleintop observed that Christmas Price Index inflation may reflect trends that led the Federal Reserve to pause interest rate hikes this year.

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Okay, I just had to share that...pretty funny stuff, right?

So...now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over, the Christmas shopping season is officially underway! Any special gifts you're hoping to receive? Or maybe a special gift you're buying for your True Love? :-) Leave me a comment!