THE GRINCH THAT STOLE CHRISTMAS

Somewhere around my 11th year of life give or take a few years (blame Mommy brain), my Dad announced that we would no longer be receiving gifts on Christmas Day. You would expect that my brothers and I wanted to call the department of children's services, shout "I hate you Daddy", and ask to be moved to a different family. Actually we didn't because first of all my Dad was the Director of that department (or the one next to it)and secondly there was no such thing as shouting at my parents (AT ALL!). But more importantly the reason why we didn't take the first bus to our much more benevolent Grandparents' house is because of my Dad's explanation for his apparent "bah humbugness". He simply said that he didn't need anyone to tell him when to buy gifts for his children. He told us (and showed us) that if we needed something it was ours and if we wanted something we only had to ask and then it would be discussed as to whether or not it was a feasible request and because we knew that our father was a man of his word we didn't put up a fuss.
Did he know that in this world of materialism and commercialism our deprivation (one of his favorite concepts) from "things" at Christmas time would makes us better citizens or parents or just good people? Or maybe he was just like I am now, a parent trying to at least show my kids a right (although very different) way of doing this thing called life.
Now that I have my own family, I have had to contemplate how I want to handle this holiday. From my first post you would know that I am all about the hype so I love the "Christmas Season". I go full blast with decorations, tree (albeit a small one because 2 2 years old plus a big tree equals disaster), lights and especially the music ("This Christmas", MJ's "I saw Mommy" etc). I take the kids to see all the lighted up areas in town and we even played in the fake snow in New Orleans and at Stone Mounatin Park. And my parents were the same way until "the announcement". While I don't want my kids to get hyped up about getting "things" for Christmas I also don't want to take away the magic of waking up on Christmas morning and getting some of the "things" that you wanted, and feeling special because you got them.
And so while I have decided to buy some "things" for my kids, (1 big gift and 2 small gift per child) I really have them hyped up about singing Christmas carols, eating gumbo and turkey (especially gumbo) and visiting friends and family. I've explained to them that the real gift was the birth of the baby Jesus.
Remember in the tv show where the Grinch stole all the "things" but Christmas was still celebrated? My Christmases after my my Dad's announcement were still full of joy and happiness, singing and dancing, eating and sleeping (my Aunt has a whole album of my Dad sleeping after we ate) and just being merry. So my Dad turned out not to be the Grinch after all. Instead he was more like Santa (beard, laugh and all) in a black turtle neck, red suspenders and a green jacket (I hated that outfit) giving me and my brothers the gift of a lesson learned, a "thing" that we at first didn't think we wanted, but in the end we certainly needed.