Shopping's traditional too

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

It's all so trivial. I recognize this. It doesn't matter that Christmas is a week away and I have so little done. No gifts for my son, my daughters, my husband. Not a present under the tree. No cookies baked. Only a handful of cards written.

Who cares. Is everyone healthy? Yes. Is everyone going to be home for Christmas? Yes. Do we have a roof over our heads, heat, lights, running water, a telephone and cars that start in the morning? Yes, yes, yes, yes!

Then why am I feeling great waves of get-me-a-paper-bag-I-can't-breathe panic instead of I'm-so-grateful-for-the-blessings-I-have peace?

I know that nothing I'm worried about is worth worrying about. So why are these stupid things consuming me?

My friend Caryn phoned last week. She'd gone for her two year cancer check-up - mammogram, blood work, another mammogram, then a magnified mammogram.

Come back tomorrow for the results, she was told. It was routine, she told herself. They were just being thorough. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to lose sleep over.

It was nothing. She is okay - two years cancer free. Merry Christmas. This is important.

A friend had his hips replaced. It was major surgery. He's still in the hospital, lots of physical therapy, but he's doing fine. This is important, too.

So many things are important: Every time your kids walk out the door and return home safely; spending time as a family preparing for the holiday; remembering friends and those without close friends and family.

A month ago, I asked my husband and daughters to write down the things they thought were important about Christmas. They all said that watching "Scrooge" and listening to Christmas carols and baking pizzelle and having Christmas breakfast at Grandma's and being together and spending time with friends were important.

Incredibly not one them wrote down getting gifts.

I posted the lists on the refrigerator and read them every day for three weeks and took solace in the fact that my family had relieved me of a burden. I didn't have to shop for them. Even my son in Florida called and said he didn't want anything, except to come home.

But now with Christmas just six shopping days away, I look at their lists and recognize that they were written under duress. They are like signed confessions. I made them do this. I pressured them with my long face.

Gift giving is part of Christmas. Presents are fun. What will they do on Christmas morning if they have nothing to open? How can it be Christmas without new socks and underwear and hair gel?

Last year I struck out big time with Christmas gifts. I bought sweaters for a son who moved to Florida; a flannel nightgown for a daughter with dreams of silk; a dress for the 15-year-old designed for a 5-year-old; and a baseball book for a husband who has yet to open it.

They pretended to like what they received. All but the 21-year-old who took me aside and said, "Look, Mom, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I'm grown-up. I don't wear flannel teddy bear nightgowns anymore." She was brutally honest; the others put up a front. But I knew. The gifts I'd bought were duds.

I told myself I'd learned an important lesson. From now on I would give my children money. This was more practical. That's what I said.

But now I'm waffling.

"They don't expect anything," my husband keeps telling me. "They'll be happier if they can shop the day after Christmas. They'll only end up taking back anything you buy."

I know he's right. Just as I know that gifts are not important, and that getting nuts about gifts is crazy, and that running around at the last minute buying things nobody needs is a waste of time.

Because gifts are not what Christmas is about.

But tradition is. And shopping for my children is a tradition. I have to do it because I always have.

And so in the next few days I will dash from store to store, in search of something special for those most special to me. But I won't be doing it for them. I know this now. I will be doing it for me.