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Sunday, December 22, 2013

Secret Santas and Forgiveness

Last Christmas was a rather depressing financial low point for us. We just couldn't do much in the way of presents or festivities. I was so depressed I put up the tree and left it bare. The kids scrounged together some decorations. It got to the point where the financial stress was giving me chest pains. 

By March we decided it was time to turn over a new leaf, get our finances in order, and pay off our credit cards. We made a strict budget for the rest of the year and every time I paid a bill on time, paid off a credit card, or said no to something not in the budget, my stress level diminished. In less than a week the chest pains were gone and haven't come back. 

In order to do this we had to use the phrase "we can't afford that right now" a lot with our kids. We didn't have big birthday parties, didn't go for long drives, and ate at home more. It wasn't completely awful. We didn't eat Top Ramen every night. We just thought, "do I want this thing more than I want to get out of debt and not be stressed all the time about money." The answer to that question was usually a big, "no."


The year has actually been a good one financially. We significantly reduced our debt, still managed to send the kids to camp in the summer, and I worked from home this fall to bring in some extra income in part because I wanted to be able to give at Christmas. I didn't want a repeat of last year's depression. 


Apparently, neither did my responsible and sensitive E. She remembered the rough time last year and the tight budget we've been keeping this year and was worried about Christmas. So, she signed her sisters and herself up for the Secret Santa program through a sort of teen community center where she goes for rock climbing. It was months ago, and she didn't ask or tell me because she wanted it to be a surprise. 


I was surprised all right! Because of last year, I had decided I needed to stop trying to stretch so far and take care of my kids first. I did feel their concern and it was painful to me. In addition, it's the thinking of each person in the family, and putting together a gift just for them, that lifts my spirits and gets me going this season. Giving is definitely my primary love language.  But my budget is still quite limited, and I'm paying closer attention to it, so this is the first year that I didn't go pull Secret Santa tags off one of the many trees about town to buy gifts for local families in need. We've given to the community in other ways, because I think that's an important part of Christmas, but not in this particular way. 


Tonight, E came back from rock climbing with an enormous bag over her shoulder.  I want to laugh at the irony, cry at the generosity of our community, and blush with embarrassment as she added those gifts to the heap already under our tree. 


My pride reacted with an immediate desire to send these gifts back or pass them on to other families who may need them more. I managed to restrain that reaction. What's more important to me, is to honor her concern and her effort to make sure her sisters got good presents this year. She was very proud of herself and told me that they (at the center) encouraged her to sign up because they needed a few more kids to sign up in order to have enough to be a participating agency. So other kids might not have been able to if she hadn't too. 


This isn't the first time we've benefitted from a community program. There were some lean years getting started as a family, and some more when we were taking care of my father-in-law while he was dying of cancer. There's no way to ever repay those who give. Nor a polite way to refuse now. Only gratitude, and the knowledge that we weren't the first young people to need a little extra help, things won't always be so tight, and we will have many opportunities to pay it forward. 


As 'crazy situations your Tweens get you into' go, this isn't so bad. Her heart for her family is precious. It's a good reminder that our kids are paying attention, and they worry about us too. None of us will get our kids through to adulthood without making a few mistakes. Usually without even realizing it. 


We think a lot about giving at Christmas. The wise men gave gifts to the baby Jesus. Jesus himself was a gift from God. Not just to be a good teacher and educate us about how to live. He came to die as the means to a more important gift, the gift of forgiveness. That whatever sin separated a person from God could be forgiven, as though it had never happened. 


A physical gift is not just a physical gift. It embodies the thoughts we have toward one another. It's difficult to give a thoughtful gift to someone you haven't forgiven. An impersonal gift without any effort or thought can actually feel offensive if the recipient speaks in the love language of gifts. A gift need not be expensive. But the giver should be aware that they're communicating something. 


This year, as I prepare to give good gifts to my family, I'd like to think of each one as renewal of forgiveness. A laying aside of anything and everything that may have happened over the past year, a sweeping aside of any offense that may separate us. A promise that between family we forgive even before an offense occurs, because we know that they are inevitable. That the love we have for each other is greater than any possible offense. That this love will cover our failures as parents. On a larger scale, that the love of our community extends, even to a worried 12 year old, without conditions. 


Proverbs 10:12 (NKJV) says, "Love covers all sins." The first gift of Christmas was forgiveness. Let's attach it to every gift like a bow, and pass it on. 




Note: My comments about love languages on this blog refer to the book "The Five Love Languages," by Gary Chapman. An excellent resource, that articulates how we all communicate love differently, and how to understand each other better. 


Sunday, December 15, 2013

Have you laughed today?

Did you take a multi vitamin today? Exercise? Drink eight glasses of water? Those things are all okay, but laughter is the best medicine. 

When your life is nothing to laugh about, that's when you need to more than ever.

When you can't change a thing, laugh at it. Because you can change yourself.

The worst that can happen is death, and that's not so bad if you think about it.

With more Americans than ever suffering from depression, we should find a way to laugh every day, just to make sure we're okay.

If you manage to live long, laugh lines look better in old age than worry lines.

Laugh until you cry if you can. It's good for your eyes.

Laugh with your children. It sets a good precedent.

Laugh at yourself. You'll never get in trouble for it, and it might get you out of trouble.

Laugh from your belly. Deep deep laughter changes your biochemistry.

Don't hide your laughter. It's contagious. If you're lucky, a good outbreak will come back to reinfect you again and again.

Without laughter, the tedium of an opulent life can become unbearable. With it, even the homeless can embrace a new day.

I don't envy the lifestyles of others, nor curse my own. There are happy people at every economic level. And miserable ones.

I envy those I see laughing in hospitals, at funerals, alongside the disabled, in their moments of personal failure, when others would call it inappropriate. They know the secret of life.

The brain shuts down under stress and blocks out bad memories. But good ones take up permanent residence in our minds, no matter how scarce.

I think lives are accounted in laughter. In the hours that we smile. In the joy we give to others.

I wonder how mine adds up.

Existential depression is a real and common problem for intellectually gifted people. I've wondered why humans bother to keep living. I've thoughtfully considered the reasons that keep me from driving to a bridge and jumping off. I've driven down the road enumerating the reasons that I should go home and not just keep driving until I run out of gas somewhere. When I go too long without humor, when I get hung up on painful repetitive thoughts about my life, when I get tired to the core of my being. I know it's time to start laughing again...by force if necessary.

To be clear, my life isn't that bad, so I know those thoughts are unreasonable and probably generated by hormonal imbalances. Hormones can affect our behavior, but changing our behavior can also affect our hormones.

I might be crazy. I can't afford the psychologist bills to find out for sure, much less their pharmacological solutions. I pay for Netflix and high speed internet, so I can turn on a standup comic until I start laughing again. I force myself to be a hugger. I surf comedy web sites. I force myself out of my hole and back into the realm of the living. It's worked so far. I laughed again today.

Parenting isn't easy. Marriage isn't easy. Life isn't easy. But if you can laugh every day, it's not as hard.

I suspect my experience is not as uncommon as it feels from the inside. If you're having trouble finding a reason to go home, if you go for days without laughing, if you're worried that you're suffering from depression but not sure it's serious or can't afford to find out for sure, you can start to help yourself by taking your laughter seriously. I can't give medical advice, and doctors will tell you to seek professional help right away. I don't disagree, but I know very well that it's not always possible. But laughter is not the exclusive provenance of doctors. You can always take more. There's no risk of overdose.

Ask your spouse or close friend to keep track if you've laughed every day. Don't keep your struggles to yourself. Then, go out and deliberately look for what's funny. Try to get it in as early as you can in your day. Notice how it affects you overall. Put funny pictures on your desktop, and in your screensaver, and by your mirrors. Let your kids draw funny pictures on your windows with dry erase markers. (Those always make me smile and are easy to wipe clean and change.) Set an hourly timer on your phone with an outrageous ringtone that will catch everyone's attention and make them laugh so you can catch their laughter. (I set my text tone to a Wilhelm scream because I get a lot of texts.) Before long that tone will make you laugh even when no one is around.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's a cheap one, and simple to implement. It may not be easy at first, but nothing worthwhile ever is. If you still find yourself thinking of ways to end your life, if you think them out all the way through, tell someone immediately. If they don't take it seriously, tell another someone. If you have no one to tell you can call the suicide prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255. Depression is not your fault. It happens to people in every area of society. It can't hurt your plans to put it off for one more day and try reaching out to someone.

If you've never had a problem with depression, laugh more anyway. It's good for your heart, and you never know who might be sitting near you that needs it.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Too Smart for Santa

What do you do when your kids figure out the Santa scam?

Yup, that's what they'll call it, a scam. They've been lied to, and they want to know why, and what you're gonna do about it! Some little smarty pants figure it out terribly, unfairly early. We don't get to play pretend with them nearly long enough. Then, they're the kid at school telling all the other kids, and you get emails from the teacher and calls from angry parents.

"How could you ruin their delusion? This is Kindergarten! Could you please stop your child from telling the other kids that there is no Santa Claus?" Yes, I got those calls.

The problem is, I don't care to lie to my kids. When they asked about Santa, they got a history lesson. When they asked about Frosty, they got a pop culture lesson. When they asked about baby Jesus they got a Bible lesson. They know Dec. 25th isn't his real birthday and why the church decided to celebrate at that particular time anyway. And they know Santa Claus was a real saint, with a real purpose, then a story, then an advertising campaign, and now...

Now I remind them that they're always trying to get adults to play pretend with them, and that this is the one time of year that most every adult is willing to play pretend with all the kids. Why? Because Santa represents an ideal of generosity, a spirit of joy in giving.

The real Saint Nicholas was originally depicted as a man of sorrow. He grieved for children living in poverty. That we can see him today as a man of joy is indicative of how the world has changed. Today's poverty is not what St. Nicholas faced. We don't send our poor to slave away in work houses and die early. We don't, on the whole, blame poverty on the poor and heap additional punishments on them. Poverty is still a real problem, but most of us are looking for opportunities to change that.

While there is no magical Santa delivering presents around the world in his sleigh, there are still presents under even the poorest trees. Because all of us are inspired by his example, we carry on his work wherever we see the need. Whether it's Project Angel Tree sending gifts to the children of incarcerated prisoners, Samaritan's Purse sending shoe box gifts to poor children in nations around the world, or your local Salvation Army meeting needs in your own neighborhood, there are many widely supported organizations doing the work this saint inspired. Even when money is scarce, we get resourceful to make sure our kids have a Merry Christmas.

We make sure they learn to participate in the giving side as well, from dropping change in Salvation Army buckets as toddlers (I never spend my change in December so they have something to give whenever we see a bucket), to putting together gifts for an orphanage in India, to serving the homeless as they get older. Giving is one of the languages of love. We experience love by receiving, and express it by giving. There's always room in the world for more love.

The Santa scam persists, not because we want to deceive to our children, but because we want them to feel there is love in the world without condition. (We tell them they have to be good, but really, our standards aren't that high.) We want to give them this experience early so they can eventually express love in equal measure.

This time of year, a lot of people complain about American materialistic excess, and capitalistic greed. I would argue that we are the most generous nation on earth. That our poverty is still wealth, compared to most of the world. Even at our poorest, we found ways to give. And that ability to give when we have little, that is wealth. Christmas, and Santa, bring that out in us. They pull us out of the dreary darkness of winter, the mundane middle of the school year, and make us rich in ways that our paychecks can't.

Now that all of my children know the truth about Santa, I've recruited them to the other side.  They're pretenders. They start calling me Mommy Claus this time of year, and ask to be my little elves. I like this better. We can all be Santa, Saints, taking care of widows and orphans, because that is the purest religion. That's what the grown up Jesus told people. He inspired Saint Nicholas, so why should there be any conflict between them? But that's another post, and one of those religious arguments I try to avoid.

I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season, and enjoying the preparations for Christmas as much as I am!