The Best Christmas Gifts

I have friends who swear by on-line shopping, completing the purchases on their entire Christmas list from the comfort of their own home. Not me. I remain a loyal shop-‘til-you-drop, let me see it, touch it consumer – especially if it’s located on the clearance rack. 

I wonder if those who only shop on-line lose out on the “what will they think of next?” experience. I’ve said that often as Christmas merchandise has flooded the stores of Northeast Ohio. Who thinks up these new products? Did you know that you could bless someone with a Chia Zombie this Christmas? Just the ticket for my “Walking Dead” friends.

One intriguing gadget is the wireless selfie stick with in-handle Bluetooth shutter control. Considering I can’t even figure out which way to hold the phone to attempt a selfie, I don’t think I’m up for a wireless selfie stick just yet.

While I didn’t see these in the big box stores yet, a radio spot suggested I purchase matching pajamas for the entire family so we could be appropriately dressed when we tear open our gifts on the morning of December 25. And to make the offer even more enticing, I can get matching pajamas for Freckles and Nala, our granddogs. The sleepwear comes in a variety of styles, including holiday stripe, deer, forest and Santa. On sale, they’d set me back $420 plus shipping. That’s a family tradition we won’t be starting this year, although the pictures would be classic.

It’s also obvious there are beaucoup bucks to be made in branded merchandise, but how much is too much? One website boasted of 784 ‘Frozen’ products. I dearly love Elsa and Anna from the movie Frozen, but I really don’t need a Disney Frozen Olaf Waffle Maker – we use a toaster for frozen waffles! Perfume, makeup, shoes, video games, and a glitter lamp – all available in time for Christmas delight. I looked at a plastic Elsa cup that I thought the lovely Madelyn Simone might enjoy, but its $10 price tag scared me off. Come to find out, it provided a space for a snack and a drink, all in the same container. What a deal.

Writing in “The Independent,” a British newspaper, Binyamen Appelbaum provides background on Disney merchandising. “Disney characters have been endorsing products since 1929, when Walt Disney put Mickey Mouse on a writing tablet. But licensing, which began as a sideline, has become the main event. In most years, Disney makes more money from selling branded movie merchandise than from the actual movies.” Josh Silverstein, Disney’s VP for Global Licensing, explains it this way: “We create products that extend the story-telling – the emotional connection that the consumer has when they’re seeing the film carries on in the three dimensional world.” What a precious sentiment.

He’s right, especially if the consumer is a four-year-old girl or her smitten grandmother. And yes, I did buy Madelyn an Elsa dress, but on hindsight, I wish I’d held out for the dress that lights up and sings. I am pleased, however, that Madelyn owns one of the more than three million Frozen dresses Disney has already sold in North America. That’s enough to outfit every four-year-old girl on the continent.

When Madelyn and I pretend to be the Frozen girls, she claims the role of Elsa and I’m relegated to Anna, who I happen to like better than Elsa anyway. Plus, Anna gets to sing more songs. But I do draw the line at wearing an Anna costume to the playground or the mall. But wait – maybe Frozen could be our theme for Christmas morning. My husband Larry would be adorable as Olaf, and the dogs could be Sven the reindeer.

But back to the shopping. What about the guys on my list? The challenges of product licensing may help me get a bargain on a Browns jersey, especially with a quarterback’s name printed on the back. What about Couch? Holcomb? Quinn? Anderson? McCoy? Weeden? I knew I should have hedged my bets and bought a reversible jersey with Hoyer on one side and Manziel on the other. But it’s OK – there are still twelve shopping days until Christmas,

Shifting Generations

My family made the “over the river and through the woods” journey this past weekend to grandmother’s house, this time for the grilled hot dogs of Labor Day rather than the turkey feast of late November. While it was a chance to get away for a few days, the weekend also dared me to consider the passing of time, symbolic of the changing of the generational guard.

The signs seemed obvious to me. My youngest son brought The Girlfriend to the unofficial family reunion, while my oldest son, daughter-in-law, and the lovely Madelyn Simone were welcomed into the newly purchased house of my niece, who has recently returned to her hometown to become a first-time homeowner. Watching the cousins horse around in the pool, my mind flashed back to the days when my boys were flailing away on top of the chicken fights instead of taking the bottom assignment.

It feels odd to me, this generational shift, but not unwelcome. I like the image writer Annie Dillard extends to us: “Ours is a planet sown in beings. Our generations overlap like shingles.” I’m caught in the overlap, still the daughter to my mother, but also the parent to my sons and a blessed grandmother as well. Yes, the family dynamics are shifting,

A shifting of the generations also requires us to embrace loss. When we brought out the cake and homemade ice cream, a Streeter family tradition for summertime gatherings, the standard question was raised: OK, who has the next birthday? With a bit of hesitation, someone said, Pops. Yes, my dad was born on September 1, 1923, and our Labor Day gathering always included a chorus of Happy Birthday for my father.

He’s been gone nine years now, yet for a moment I expected to see him in his familiar chair at the dinner table, tipping up a bottle of home-brewed root beer. He loved his kids and grandkids dearly, and he would be so impressed with the progress ten-year-old Lucas is making with his clarinet, and would certainly be smitten with the charm of Madelyn, his first, and so far the only great-grandchild. I’m even guessing that Dad would have given in and played Monopoly the first time eight-year-old Noah asked. That’s who my dad was.

Though it’s been a number of years since Dad’s death, my visit to the proverbial homestead left me yearning for what Mitch Albom described in “For One More Day:” “Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.”

And yet in the midst of these pointed reminders of loss and the shifting sands of the generations, the joyful connections remain. The playful soccer game on the front lawn, the laughter in the pool, the ever-creative story-telling, all speak to the expansiveness of family. It’s times like these that cause us to say, “It’s good to be together.”

We expect to face the existential questions of life in the pale light of the stained glass windows, in the philosophy classroom, or on a solitary retreat. Yet just as often, loss, love and light come our way in the everyday, when we pause to recognize the tap on our shoulder or the wink of an eye.

I’m at risk of waxing poetic just now, so I’ll let the words of James Baldwin finish my thoughts today: “For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.” Amen.

Happily Ever After . . .

In my desire to pass on my love for reading to my granddaughter, Madelyn and I enjoy a “read to me, Grandma” book that includes some of the classic children’s stories that existed long before Disney Studios. It’s a challenge to get all of the words on the page spoken before her three-year-old fingers seek out the next illustration, but when we get to the end of the stories, Madelyn is quick to utter the tag line – “and they lived happily ever after.”

O, dear Madelyn, how can I break the news to you that Cinderella may have flashbacks from her years of abuse at the hands of her step-mother and siblings, and that marriage to a prince can be demanding, especially when she’s only known him for a few hours? Snow White will surely miss the support of the seven dwarfs when she moves in with the prince, and the traumatic stalking by her mother figure, as well as her time in the glass coffin, will not easily be forgotten.

I’ve thought about that “happily ever after” wish as the story of Amanda, Gina, and Michelle has unfolded on the near west side of Cleveland. Day after day, their kidnapping ordeal was horrific, and while we hope and pray that these women find a sliver of peace in the days ahead, we know that there’s no Prince Charming to rescue them and no magic wand to obliterate their past. It will take hard work, extensive support, and determination to move ahead with their lives.

 It’s especially ironic that the public’s desire to know the gory details threatens to keep these women bound in the days and weeks ahead, at least until their fame fades from the media’s spotlight.  One long-time kidnapping victim, Jaycee Dugard, understands: "These individuals need the opportunity to heal and connect back into the world. This isn't who they are. It is only what happened to them. The human spirit is incredibly resilient. More than ever this reaffirms we should never give up hope."

How their families have suffered as well. Those who knew Louwana Miller, Amanda Berry’s mother, believe she died of a broken heart, and all three mothers walked through some of the darkest days of motherhood – the disappearance of a child into the abyss of the unknown. Upon her visit to the hospital, Gina’s mother, Nancy Ruiz, described her reaction: “We just grabbed each other and held on. There were no words - just hugging and kissing and crying.”

I watched the news broadcasts with a well of compassion for the mothers whose children haven’t returned, the children whose faces used to stare at us from milk cartons, but whose bodies may be buried in an unmarked grave by the side of a road. That’s the more likely scenario – while we celebrate the release of Amanda, Gina and Michelle, we know only too well that for every miracle story, there are all too many unresolved cases and tragic endings.  

As much as I wish otherwise, we live in a world with no promise of happily ever after. Even as we celebrate Mother’s Day, with its slobbery kisses, breakfasts in bed, and framed handprints in multi-colored splendor, we can taste the bitter-sweetness of the holiday. For amidst the joy of the day, the reality of life is that infertile women, bereft mothers, and grieving orphans of all ages will experience deep sorrow as well.

As a high school student in the early 70’s, I was drawn to the writing of Kahlil Gibran, and his words make sense on the subject:  “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

And so it is. We contain our own joy as we cherish our mothers and our memories, but we too are mindful of the losses, and listen for the whispers of lament in the air. As Ruiz reminds us, sometimes all we can do is grab each other and hold on. Here’s to a joy-touched Mother’s Day.