Suffering from PDS?

Even my kids agree that despite my intentions to "tone down" Christmas presents, I have yet to succeed.  And each year that is my goal -- and then, I start to think OH NO!  There's not enough.

Enough what?

When I was in middle school I came downstairs on Christmas morning and went to "my chair."  Just as my kids do, my brother and sister and I chose chairs where our gifts would be placed by Santa.  In middle school I was well aware that there was no Santa, but one surely did need a spot claimed as theirs for gifts to go.  Hence, my chair.  We don't hang stocking from the mantle, but instead each stocking is placed on the corresponding chair, and I am pretty sure we did this during my childhood too -- though my memories are a bit murky.  Anywho, that particular Christmas morning there was a big pink stuffed dog on my chair.  As the eldest, I was quite sure that my mother a.k.a. Santa had mistakenly put it on the wrong chair.  I quickly brought this to her attention, and she said no, it was mine.  It was mine?

I considered this, as I gazed back at the wrapped presents on my chair, and realized that the unwrapped pink dog was the Santa gift, as per our tradition.  A pink dog?  I had never been a stuffed animal child, and I certainly hadn't turned into a stuffed animal teenager, so I was confused.  I mean seriously, what was up with the pink dog?

I of course could not let it go, and after all the presents were opened and the day had drawn on and relatives had arrived and the adults were imbibing in a little holiday cheer, I finally got my answer.  My mother, who had been fielding pink dog questions all day, looked at me in exasperation and said that at the final hour, after all the presents had been wrapped and set upon chairs, my chair looked a little sparse.  So the pink dog (one has to assume it was to go to my younger sister, who liked dolls and stuffed animals enough to cherish them) ended up on my chair.  To make me feel better.  When in fact, it had had the opposite effect.  First, I thought my parents had made a mistake, which wasn't earth shaking, but still, at that age you are doing anything you can to hold on to the magic of the season despite no longer having the myth upheld -- so if they had just taken the dog and handed it to my sister, all would have been fine.  But no, instead they insisted that it was mine, which therefore led me to believe they had lost their minds ... which is always a scary thought for a child.  Especially when you are firm in your belief that you make it pretty clear what type of person you are.  I was a tomboy and I rode horses and I played in the woods with boys (and I PLAYED  and built forts and hide and seek, etc. in the woods with boys, not like the modern day version of a kid my age) but at no time during the 12-14 years of my life had I indicated I liked stuffed animals.  Pink was okay, I have always liked pink.  But not on a dog.

 

Every time I looked at that dog, it made me wonder.  I was in possession of a pink stuffed animal I didn't want because my parent's felt BAD that I didn't have enough presents.  It didn't make any sense.  And it still doesn't -- and yet, I am guilty of it myself.  Sometimes I will purchase something not because I know my child will love it, but because I am at a loss of what to get them and I have already purchased X amounts of presents for the other two, so it has to be fair.  Right?

I don't know, I really don't.  Every year there are one or two people who I could buy for over and over and over.  It is never the same people twice; and it is crazy frustrating.  This year it is my mother and sister.  I have already purchased their PERFECT presents, but every day I come up with a new idea -- which would be equal to what I have already come up with.  Last year it was Hallie and Peter.   This year they are near impossible -- can't come up with a thing!  Maddie and Charlie provided me with lists and since all Charlie wanted was an Xbox 360, well he's pretty much done.  As the youngest, I guess it is his year to realize that knowing what you are getting for Christmas is the best way to ensure that you get what you want!

I have wrapped the presents I have bought thus far, and because Maddie and Charlie are so competitive, I have resorted to not putting their actual names on the presents.  Last year I used numbers -- but they are smart and quickly figured out that 1 was Hallie and 2 was Maddie and 3 was Charlie.  As Maddie said, either way, I am two!  Which left Charlie to moan that 2 had the most presents!  Of course.  This year I came up with random, crazy names -- Zorba, Gemmy, Simian and Malachite.  It is interesting to listen to them try to figure out who is who.  I have thrown Peter into the mis-named mix as well to keep them all guessing.  Their biggest concern is that I will forget who is who -- which I did last year because I kept telling them so many different ways that it could work, I forgot myself!  (In fact, I think Hallie was 3 and Charlie was 1 because I assumed they would figure it out?)  I don't know.  No one received a pink dog. 

That I know for sure!

I was also wondering why I was so crazy organized this year -- even more so than in the past.  I know that I like to get the majority of my online shopping done before Thanksgiving just because of shipping reasons (for example, all the presents I ordered before Black Friday/CyberMonday came within days of ordering.  Days.  Everything I've ordered post-Thanksgiving hasn't even shipped.  It really makes a huge difference -- the volume they get after T-Day increases tenfold.)  My goal in the past has to have everything done before our annual trip to New York City -- and with the exception of a few stocking stuffers, have done this for quite some time.  But this year I feel compelled to have it all done even earlier than that.  I just want to avoid the stress of it all.  I really do.  I know this is based on years and years and years of trying to fit Christmas shopping around deadlines at work -- and every year in the spirit of post-traumatic-holiday-stress-disorder (PTHSD) -- I start to panic that I won't get it all done.  It's funny how something is so deeply ingrained in you -- and even those last years at work after I had figured out how to reduce the workload during that crazy holiday period -- it still persisted, that nagging, panicky, heaviness settling on the chest feeling that I will have to be in a mall surrounded by thousands of people, listening to Christmas music and feeling the brush of a thousand different coats as people try to get past me to get to the next store, carrying armloads of bags and hurrying.  Hurrying.  No smiles, just grim determination.

But despite it all, I do not want to fall into pink dog syndrome -- I don't want to be out there purchasing presents for the sake of creating volume -- on someone's chair!  I can not honestly say that if my parents had put the pink dog on its proper chair, whether or not I would have counted the presents and dutifully noted to one and all that I had been short changed!  My memories of Christmas are all good -- I don't have any ghosts of Christmas pasts banging on my door late at night causing me to lament any shortages.  The one present that is deeply etched in my memory is a small little record player.  Oh, how I loved that thing.  It was not much bigger than a breadbox -- okay, for all of us here who never dealt with bread boxes, it was about the size of a waffle maker!  And you would put in the small records (78's?)  I can't even remember what they were called, so you would put the teeny one song record into it, and then close the top and it would play.  I LOVED that thing.  Loved it.  I loved it as much as I love my Kindle, and that says a LOT!

We still lived in Bedford, so I was younger than 5th grade, and I couldn't tell you another present that I have received over the years that touched me like that one did.  I also can't tell you if I even asked for it.  All I remember is loving it.  Absolutely loving it.  It was tan and it had a handle that you could carry it around, like a small pocketbook (and we all know I love my pocketbooks!) and it was compact and perfect.  Loved it.  My guess is that I had no idea something like it even existed -- and that it was a Santa gift -- and I can still remember wondering what it was at first -- and then when I figured it out, it was the most incredible feeling.  How can our children who have grown up with iPods ever understand that kind of feeling?  That I, as a child, could carry around my own portable music making machine, that I could take it outside (it ran on batteries) and out into the woods and sing to my heart's content?

Maybe that is what was so special -- receiving something I didn't even know I wanted.

I feel so jaded -- because I can't for the life of me think of another present EVER that touched me that way.   And now, in order to ensure that I do get what I want, I buy most of my own Christmas presents, or tell everyone exactly what I want.  But now I think it explains why I love to try to surprise someone with something I think they will love -- I rarely ask people what they want -- because I am trying to give them what I experienced all those years ago. 

I guess we should all give thanks to the Pink Dog who reminded me of that wonderful present!



I was searching for the little mini record player and when this popped up I remembered having it too!!!!   It also reminded me that I loved, loved, loved my EasyBake oven!  Ahh, memories of Christmas presents past!    NEXT POST!  Stay tuned.