The gift of joy is the best gift

Despite the earthquake and cyber shopping, local stores have been butling with shoppers. Shoppers that are searching for the expression of joy that the right gift or gifts will bring from their loved ones. I mean, which reaction will you cherish more from your child? The one when they open their present and it’s a Nintendo Switch or the one when they open their present and it’s a pair of socks. I know it shouldn’t matter and it’s the thought that counts, but let’s get real.

Over the years I’ve experienced both ends when it comes to gift-giving and children. I’ve seen joy from my three children’s faces many times when they were little and we hit the gift giving target spot-on. I’ve also seen the look on their faces when we ask them to hold up their gift they just unwrapped and it’s a package of underwear. Smart parents mix in buying the essentials with their Christmas budget, while still counting it as a gift.

Deal with it, kids.

My own parents were the masters of gift-giving on a budget. Raising five kids on a military salary in the 1970’s was a tough budget to navigate. The odds where that only one of the five of us were going to get that one high-dollar gift we wanted.

Then, as we started to become wiser in our pre-teen years, we became pretty good at sleuthing out where the gifts were hidden. Mom, always a step ahead, adapted by wrapping the presents as she bought them just in case our efforts paid off. Of course, the first time we found them wrapped we pulled them all out of the closet, gently pulled off the tape from the wrapping paper and sneaked a peek. We adhered the tape back in place and stacked them back in the closet. We forgot one thing, though — our mom had that super power that all moms have: a photographic memory. Turns out she knew exactly how she stacked the presents in the closet. And when she went to add another present to the pile, the gig was up. But before the news reached us that she knew what we knew, she told dad. Let’s just say the punishment was such that we never pulled that stunt again.

For my dad, Christmas meant endless torturing us kids over our anticipated gifts we were to receive. For example, there was the year, just prior to Christmas day, he gathered his darling children into the living room while mom was in the kitchen cooking dinner. He opened up the newspaper and began reading a story headlined, “Santa Claus was shot down over New York City.” He continued to ad lib. As he began to expand on the made-up story, mom comes racing out of the kitchen mortified that he would even tease about such a thing. I thought it was funny but I was 10, so I thought everything the man did was darn near perfect except when he disciplined me. I think I’m still on record that not a single punishment was fair or my fault.

Then there was the Christmas when I was 12. All I wanted was a new bike. That was it. Keep your underwear and socks; I’ll wear my pants that the bottom of the legs rose up past my ankles for another year. Yes, I was willing to endure a year of ‘Hey Dennis, where’s the flood!’ teasing from my peers. I was even willing to sacrifice the joy away from my siblings of receiving their favorite gifts that year. I wanted that bike!

That year we were living in Augusta, Ga. after three years in Germany. We lived on Boykin road just about a mile from Augusta National Speedway. It was a racetrack on what is now titled the NASCAR circuit. This was during the time when Richard Petty was dominating the series. The series hadn’t begun its climb to national fame. It was still mostly a Southern sport. After the race we could go down to the infield and hang out with the drivers and climb on their cars. Every other backyard in my neighborhood had a makeshift racetrack. I wanted that new bike so I could compete with my buddies.

Several weeks before Christmas I found it. My dream bike was sitting on the rack at K-Mart. I grabbed my mom and showed it to her. She was a beauty with a red paint scheme that faded to yellow. It looked like fire but without the cheeky flames. I even named it right then a there. I dubbed her ‘Wildfire.” Then my mom gave me the code phrase all moms give when they don’t want to say ‘no’ — “We’ll see.” But I interpreted those words as ‘maybe’ and hung on to that until Christmas Eve when we would open our presents.

When Christmas Eve arrived after our traditional Christmas lights sightseeing with our dad, I raced into the house to see my new bike with the rest of the gifts. No bike was there. Wildfire didn’t make the budget. That Christmas I would unwrap socks and underwear or gifts that were the equivalent. I had to hide my disappointment because in my dad’s eyes there was no crying in gift receiving. His motto was — ‘you’re lucky you got what you got.’

To top off my completely hidden frustration — or at least I thought I hid it well — Dad tasked me to clean up all the Christmas wrap and empty boxes and take the them to the trash cans out in our backyard. So, I did. Moving as though I were getting paid by the hour and milking the clock. I heard, “Dennis, you’re not sulking over your Christmas gifts are you?” Dad belted. “No, sir,” I sulked.

“Get that first load to the trash so we have room in here,” Dad said in that tone that I immediately knew meant that he meant business.

There I went with boxes full of Christmas wrap and other remnants from the worst Christmas ever known to a child. I slid open the door that led to our patio on the way to the trash cans. Two steps outside and there she was. I couldn’t believe it. Wildfire! My dad with a sense of humor that only he could really appreciate kept the bike at a friend’s house until Christmas Eve. Assembled it there and placed in the backyard out of sight until he assigned me clean up duty. He moved the bike on to the patio just before I would have to take out the trash. Only he and Mom knew.

I have maybe two or three years of memories of riding Wildfire. Eventually I grew out of her and moved up to a 10-speed bike. I grew out of dirt track racing with my friends and we moved to Lawton, Okla. where dad would retire from the military. While the memories of Wildfire have faded, the look on my parents’ faces as I went from self-pity to sheer joy is as prevalent as ever. The joy they received was not from the torture they put their middle child through that Christmas Eve, but from that moment of giving one of their children something he truly wanted, even if it was a gift they probably couldn’t afford. I would have been over not receiving the bike by the next morning, but some 40 years later I’m not over the memory of their joy in giving the gift.

Merry Christmas and thank you for reading the Frontiersman.