I don’t remember everything I ever got for Christmas.  Do you?  There were a few things that stood out.  I remember a grown up pre-Barbie dress up doll my sister ordered with cereal boxtops, a Tiny Tears baby doll, and Melody Bells, a musical toy.  My oldest brother, away at college, sent me a stuffed animal pooch that I carried around until the stuffing started falling out.  I remember my parents giving me my older sister’s used bike for Christmas one year. : (

When I was old enough to write I made the annual wish list/letter to Santa. The lists got more elaborate as the years passed.  New fads and new gadgets began populating the list.  I imagine my parents were as uncertain about what to get teens then as most parents of teenagers are today.  That ’s when they began giving us cards with dollar bills to spend.  There’s good and bad in that. It’s still a gift, and there is magic in suddenly having money to spend.  I did the same thing with my teens when I discovered that almost every item I bought was likely to end up a return.  Except that it wasn’t cash, it was a gift card.  But, somehow, I felt like I was missing something.  Something tangible in the gift process.

Several years ago I had the privilege of working with a kindly gentleman in his late 70s.  He had a lovely tradition with his teen-aged grandchildren.  He also gave them money, but they spent it while visiting him.  He took them to various stores in the mall and they had a shopping day together.  Lunch out, as well.  He didn’t actually go in the stores, rather he waited happily in the mall in one of those comfortable chairs, reading the paper, or doing a crossword puzzle.  Shopping isn’t nearly so tiring if you bring a book.  : )

What I liked most about his solution was that he got in on the gift.  He experienced the excitement of it.  The gift was not so much a thing, as an adventure, a shared occasion.  And lunch out was a bonus, both for the giver and the gifted.  I think I’ll try it one of these days.  It could work.