Christmas Wrapped

Award winning blogger, Ree, aka “The Pioneer Woman,” chronicles her decade-long transition from spoiled city girl to isolated ranch wife on her weblog, Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. Ree faithfully posts daily contributions to her site, including inspiring photography, tongue-in-cheek poetry, and often hilarious stories about her experiences as a city girl stuck in rural America. Ree’s site features sections about cooking, home & garden and photography. Confessions of a Pioneer Woman won a Bloggie for “Best-Kept Secret Weblog” in 2007 and won Bloggies for “Best Food Weblog” and “Best Writing of a Weblog” in 2008.

Over the weekend, with no warning whatsoever, the Christmas Spirit descended upon my house. This had a lot to do, I’m sure, with the fact that we finally got our Christmas tree, and you can’t have a Frasier Fir in your house and not be completely enchanted by the Christmasey scent. The first of my online Christmas purchased have just started arriving, and I’m trying to avoid adding up the total of all those checkmarks I put in the box next to the words “Gift Wrap.” The cost of those checkmarks alone will probably wind up totaling what I could have otherwise spent on a nice gift for my husband. It’s a good thing he and I promised we wouldn’t get each other anything this year.

 

The point is, despite all the hustle and bustle and busy-ness of our everyday lives, Christmas this year is turning out to be what Christmas should be. I’ve baked cookies with my children. I’ve leisurely rounded up our Christmas tree decorations, which I might put on the tree today if I feel like it. Then again, I might not; I’ve got time. Johnny Mathis music is playing. It’s below freezing outside. And the kids and I are trying to see how many vintage Christmas specials we can record on the DVR. We haven’t found the claymation version of “Rudolph…” yet, but we’re looking. And my Apple Cider candle is deliciously burning on my desk, making the whole house smell like the holidays.

 

Most notably, I haven’t visited one shopping mall. Instead, I’ve carved out a little time each night after the kids go to bed to shop online. Sometimes I buy things. Sometimes I don’t. But I shop around, looking here and there and examining different items, just as I would at an in-person shopping center. Only I don’t have a three-hour round trip to contend with, and I don’t feel forced to make a quick, impulsive purchase because there’s a mob of people around me and I feel like have to get out of there before I start to sweat. I just click around, inhaling the yumminess of my candle, enjoying the fuzzy socks on my feet, and occasionally finding just the right thing for my mom or my sister or my mother-in-law…and unapologetically checking the box next to “Gift Wrap” because, guess what? I would have spent that money on gasoline if I’d driven to the big city to go to the mall.

 

I have lots of Christmas-related rationalizations. Let me know if you’d like to see my complete list sometime.

 

Things are different this year—more “different” than I remember them being in a long, long time. People are worried, cautious, and while the needs of my immediate family are taken care of for the time being, nobody—least of all cattle ranchers who depend on market stability to make a living—knows what tomorrow brings. A month ago, when the reality of the economic downturn became clear, I wondered what this would do to the Christmas Spirit, both in my house and everywhere else.

 

Strangely, it seems to have had no effect; or if it has, it’s actually given the overall Christmas Spirit a bit of a boost. I think the current challenges in our country and in our world have caused folks to consider the important things in life, and go back to the things that ground us: Family. Friends. Traditions, old and new. Helping others in need. Fir trees. Candles. Christmas cookies.

 

And checking the box next to “Gift Wrap.” That alone is making my Christmas season memorable.

I’ve been steadily doing my Christmas shopping, and am happy with some little nuggets I’ve found while shopping online. My list is slowly dwindling, and I’m feeling the nice holiday buzz that comes from knowing I won’t have to rush around like a madwoman for the next 30 days.

My boy loves sharks and is obsessed with Jaws, which makes perfect sense on a cattle ranch, don’t you think? He’s going to love this shark-themed “archeological” dig, which will eventually unearth a huge shark jaw and make a total mess of my kitchen floor…but who’s counting?

Oh, man. Can anyone guess who this is? It’s Goliath, which my baby (well, he’s four) is going to love since he’s seriously obsessed with the David and Goliath tale from the big book. An old testament action figure? How cool is THAT? But…is Goliath actually…smiling? He never struck me as the smiling type.

My nine-year-old daughter is neat, tidy, and loves nothing more than to have a project that requires her to use her hands in some creative way. She also meticulously marks days off the This scrapbooking kit will allow her to create her own 18-month calendar. This’ll keep her out of trouble for at least a couple of weeks!

Finally, for my oldest child, my firstborn, my eleven-year-old girl, who’s not only 5’6” and already wears a larger shoe size than me, but who’s also gone from pink-loving little girl to discriminating sophisticate (well, sorta) overnight, there’s this awesome bedding:

How awesome can bedding get, I ask you?

I’m thinking I could do all the kids’ bedrooms in this theme.

Think my boys would go for it?

Nah. I didn’t think so.

Okay, so I’m not a clinical agoraphobe; I just play one on TV. But the “older” I get (I’ll be forty this year), the less tolerant I am of crowds, lines, and trying to weave a shopping cart around a store packed with people. Living in the country for over a decade has probably only exacerbated my inability to psychologically handle retail crowds, so each Christmas I have to really plan carefully to avoid having a total meltdown. Because a total meltdown, for me, results not in my making a scene or crying in the middle of a retail establishment (though wouldn’t that be funny!), but leaving my cart at the end of Aisle Nine and abandoning ship, totally empty-handed. Don’t laugh—it’s happened before. More than once.

I live an hour and a half from Christmas shopping, so I’m not able to “run out and do a little” when the time is right. As such, I set aside two days—one in October, one in November—when I rise very, very early and drive to the big city, arriving at the stores as early as I can. In some cases, if it’s a large store that’s open 24 hours, I’m not afraid to start shopping before 6:00 a.m. If they open at 7:00, I’m right there by the door. If it’s a high-end store that doesn’t open ‘til 10:00, my nose is pressed against the window at 9:58, just in case the manager’s clock is two minutes fast. I want in that door the second the store opens for business!

Early morning shopping is blissful: You can pick up coffee on the way, and sip it as you shop. The employees of the store have puffy eyes, but a nice early-morning spring to their step. Any shoppers—if any—that are in the store are in exercise gear and have their hair in ponytails or under baseball caps, and everyone has that just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-splashed-water-on-my-face dewiness about them. Plus, there’s a curious camaraderie among shoppers who will arrive at a store just after sunlight; I swear, fellow shoppers and I have exchanged knowing winks before.

But most of all, the shopping itself is a complete pleasure. There’s no negotiating the aisles, trying to avoid running over anyone’s heels. You can browse every aisle in the store, unhurried, if you want, carefully considering everyone on your Christmas list and putting all the thought you need into each and every purchase.

And finally, when you see the growing stream of shoppers trickling into the store just as you’re wheeling your sacks full of presents to the car, you can sigh happily. The day hasn’t even really begun, and you’ve just taken a huge bite out of your Christmas list. And you can even go pick up another cappuccino on your way home.

Talk about beating the system.

I am so not a planner by nature. Not by a longshot. But after I had my fourth child and realized my life would never again be a calm, serene, non–chaotic place, I realized very quickly that I’d better get organized about a few key areas in my life…or things could quickly spiral downhill.

Christmas shopping is one category on which I’ve successfully maintained a tight rein over the past years––unlike my laundry situation and my kitchen junk drawers, which I’ve about determined are hopeless. I’m not sure why getting control of Christmas was so important to me; I’m sure it’s partly because I really want the focus of the holiday season to be family, friends, nostalgia, tradition, and the meaning of the holiday itself–––not freaking out and running to the mall every couple of days because OH MY GOSH, I forgot to get Aunt Sally’s mikman’s present! Christmas is RUINED! I want my kids to enjoy Christmas, to remember it fondly, and not associate the holiday with a frenzied mother whose hair looks like she stuck her finger in a socket.

It’s also important to me that Christmas not be about consumerism and materialism, even though it’s pretty hard not to spiral into that trap without trying. Growing up, I had a friend who would call me and complain every Christmas afternoon that “her parents didn’t get her anything good.” And later, when I examined her stash, my mouth would fall open–––watches, designer purses, clothes. It made an impression, even then. I knew that wasn’t what Christmas should be about.

Except for the designer purse. I’d never turn down one of those.

So now, I begin Christmas shopping in October, which is two months earlier than I ever thought about preparing for Christmas when I was single and without kids. Starting early, for me, ensures that I won’t be scurrying around like a maniac at the last minute, AND that I won’t put myself in a position to spend way more on gifts than I would otherwise, which invariably happens if I wait ‘til the week of Christmas to shop.

Most everyone on my list, with the exception of my kids, gets one gift, so knocking out the individual gifts is pretty simple. But when it comes to the kids’ Christmas presents, I had to come up with some framework, some organized approach, or the number of presents quickly mushroomed into a random mish–mash of grotesque material excess.

Here’s what I came up with.
I have three categories of gifts for my kids:

• Something they want
• Something they need
• A book

My self–imposed rule is this: I have to get something from all three categories before starting over and repeating the process. So, say I decided to get each of my kids three gifts this year. I’d have to get one gift from each of the three categories. If I decided to get them six gifts each, I’d have to have two from each category, etc.

I’ll use my oldest daughter to demonstrate how this list might translate to real–life gifts:

• Something she wants: A locket. Don’t ask me why. She must’ve read about one in a book somewhere.
• Something she needs: A new pair of spurs. She’s outgrown hers, and I have my eye on a new pair with turquoise stones.
• A book: I found an incredible Dorling–Kindersley reference book about birds, which is full of thousands of gorgeous photos. She’s into birds these days.

So there we go! A piece of jewelry, a pair of spurs, and a thick reference book about birds. I feel good about that combo. The jewelry is something that’ll make her happy–––it’s a memorable gift. The spurs are something we would have had to buy anyway, so to conceal it as a Christmas gift kills two birds with one stone. And the book, while educational, is colorful and substantial.
I generally repeat the 3–category revolution once again, resulting in six (or so) gifts for each kid: a couple of “exciting” things they’ll like, a couple of things they need, and a couple of new books.

It results in a nice Christmas. It’s not necessarily the kind of Christmas that’ll bust any records in terms of lavish goods. But it’s the kind of Christmas I always feel good about.