Christmas changes for you when you become an adult.
Now don’t get me wrong; the turkey is still juicy, the card games played around the Ruttle family table are fun and the movies played on repeat are still enjoyable to watch, but there comes a time when you reach a certain age and your views on Christmas just kind of morph. It no longer becomes about breaking the bank on gifts or expecting a mountain of them in return; rather, it becomes a time where you work towards creating some great memories to look back on after the holidays are over and it’s the cold and miserable ‘dead of winter’ period known as January in Saskatchewan.
That’s not to say I don’t enjoy receiving gifts, but I’ve learned that giving just tends to feel better because for all you know, you’ve just made someone’s week and gotten them to smile and feel cherished for the first time in a long while. That kind of feeling is certainly better than any material goods like the latest tech gadgets or other trendy items that advertising firms position as “must-have” in order for you to open that wallet and spend like there’s no tomorrow.
I may be talking like as if I’m some curmudgeonly old man, but I like to think I’m an old soul at heart. Even at a relatively young 32 years of age (it’s not the years, it’s the mileage as Indy said), Christmas for me became a time of making memories a long time ago instead of wishing for a bunch of things on a list.
I’ll put it to you this way: think about the last five or so Christmases that you had. Do you remember every gift you ever received, or do you remember the times that were spent with family and friends?
I thought so.
Again, I’ve enjoyed some memorable gifts over the years, and I’m certainly not trying to come off as some martyr. For as many times as I’ve tried to make someone smile by giving them a gift, someone has also done that for me. And by someone, I mainly mean my parents. I don’t know how they managed to pull it off some years, but Jack and Lynda always had an ace or three up their sleeves and left my brothers and I speechless and absolutely spoiled rotten.
Like the Nintendo system my brothers and I got in 1992, which we proceeded to play until our hands nearly took on the deformation of permanent ‘controller hand’; the drum set I got in 1999, which was hidden at a family friend’s house until well into the morning on Christmas Day, at which point my disappointment soon turned to jubilation; and the video camera I got in 2003, which received a lot of use as I had dreams of being a filmmaker at the time.
These were all cherished gifts that brought with them their own memories and experiences, but in the last decade or so, my main focus at Christmas just became about having a good time and filling my head with memories to look back on. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a night in with friends or a nice dinner with other family members; they all carry with them their own unique moments that make them memorable and something that makes you smile when you look back on it.
Take my two holiday traditions, for example. My two sisters Laurel and Launa live in Saskatoon, and while we’re only an hour apart, sometimes life just has a way of jetting by and we don’t see each other as often as we should. Part of that is remedied by the fact that every December for the last few years, we text and email in order to pick a date and meet up for supper somewhere in the city. It’s become one of my favourite things to do during the holiday season, and I’m looking forward to the 2017 edition of our pre-Christmas dining experience in the next couple of weeks.
The other tradition involves my group of friends who’ve I’ve known since high school. It’s very similar to my meals out with my sisters in that my friends and I also meet for supper somewhere in the city, but often it also means heading back to someone’s house for cards, maybe a movie or two, and just some nice visiting. I consider my closest friends to be family, so it only adds to my ‘memory bank’ at Christmas.
Make sure you do something to look back on and smile by this time next year.
For this week, that’s been the Ruttle Report.
