Christmas holiday gift basket

For the first time in my life, I exchanged no Christmas gifts with my family. For two decades, I had fussed about the consumerism of Christmas, the ridiculous overemphasis on tinsel and toys, the corruption of a simple religious holiday. But until this year, I had never dared spurn the gift exchange. I could still hear my relatives' caustic remarks when someone couldn't be bothered to send more than a fruit basket; my grandmother's calculus of her children's love by the thoughtfulness--and elegance--of their gifts. I knew my mother wasn't like that. By grace and sheer will, she had escaped. Yet I could not risk her thinking, even for an irrational second, that I did not love her to the bursting point.

This year, however, fate conspired. Our sun porch floor rotted; the glass block required re-mortaring; there were car repairs and medical bills. And then my mother-in-law said, "Oh, let's not do presents this year," and we leaped at the suggestion.

I have never had such a wonderful holiday.

It felt odd not shopping for those closest to me, odd not debating what they'd want, odd not having boxes and boxes to wrap and place under the tree. But suddenly I had all sorts of energy for the rest of the rituals. My husband lit Hanukkah candles; I arranged the creche on the mantel; we caught the Charlie Brown Christmas special on TV; and then we ignored TV and listened to gorgeous holiday music every evening. The cards stacked up as if done by elves. With delight and not a single sigh of burden, I planned a traditional English feast for the family Christmas Day. Two evenings later, we had friends over for dinner and laughed and talked by the fire for hours. Not once did I feel stressed. One evening close to Christmas, when I would have been running around the mall like a headless chicken, I sat happily at the dining-room table painting an ornament for our neighbors' children. Just as I tied the ribbon, a knock came at the door--it was the neighbor, bringing us a tray of his wife's home-baked cookies.

Gleeful at the serendipity and lightheartedness of the season, I grew adamant. When a colleague at work suggested a cookie-exchange that would have had me scrambling for recipes and ingredients, I quietly declined, explaining that I was determined to keep this holiday carefree. Again and again, I decided against compulsiveness, going to sleep early with tasks undone, letting evergreen boughs fall into a natural fan shape instead of wiring them into obedience.

When I found myself missing the present buying, I reminded myself that birthdays were a chance to cherish and celebrate each individual I love, throwing all attention on them. Christmas was Jesus' birthday, and he didn't need striped socks or a DVD player. He needed presence.

The absence of anxiety did make me wonder, however, why the gift buying had been so stressful in the first place. Angst does not twist my heart when I buy birthday presents. But Christmas gifts are reciprocal; one cannot under-buy, one cannot be outdone. Escalation is writ into the equation. Hence the many desperate measures--cost limits, name-drawings if we try to enforce to stop the madness.

The other anxiety producer, I realized next, is confined to adults. Somehow I decided unconsciously some where along the way that Christmas presents should restore Christmas magic. Sleigh bells should ring faintly in waxy old ears; sugarplums should dance in the bifocals.

But it's tough to find a board game or necktie that's capable of restoring wonder, innocence and joy.

This year, I did not agonize over finding magical presents to prove my love. And this year, I felt no post-Christmas letdown. The day after Christmas, I did not wake up feeling slightly sad and empty. I did not rush to make guilty returns of stuff that didn't fit or wasn't quite right. I did not have to feel furtive, trading someone else's idea for my own. I did not have that lonely sense that no one quite knew what I liked or needed.

I woke up happy, still full of energy, eager to start the new year.

In years past, Andrew and I have trotted off to separate corners on Christmas Day, admiring our new pos sessions, clipping tags, deciding what matches the new sweater, playing the new CD, pursuing separate hobbies. This year, we hung out together all weekend, went to a movie, ate and talked and napped. When our parents came over, instead of a block of time opening packages and ooing and thanking, we played Taboo and listened to carols and talked. When I walked the dog at midnight, passing the milk-jug luminaries lining the sidewalk of a neighborhood church, I smiled, feeling none of the old tension between Santa stuff and the real holiday.

The difference stunned me.

Twenty years of rhetoric about materialism killing Christmas--yet I'd been an eager participant all along.

[Jeannette Cooperman is a freelance writer living in St. Louis. Her e-mail address is kabaka@sbcglobal.net.]