The Anticipation is Gift Enough

I love the holidays. I put our tree up yesterday and will just revel in the warm glow of it every night from now until Christmas. I dusted off the menorah and placed it in the windowsill. I hung the stockings and filled up a bowl with crackable nuts. I started baking my holiday cookies which I will dole out to our friends. I started writing out our holiday cards. Already wrapped gifts have been placed underneath the tree on the tree skirt that my mother made. I am ready.

For what, exactly. Sure, I love getting and giving gifts. But it was definitely more exciting being a kid and waking up to see a tree that was bare the night before now completely overshadowing piles and piles of presents, the cookies we left for Santa gone and a note in their place. Even after all gifts were opened and all that was left was paper and ribbon ready to get sucked up in the vacuum, we still had all these new toys to play with. Now, as an adult, I just like the anticipation. The leading up to it. Christmas is a bit of a let-down, to be honest. Because then it's over. No more looking forward to it. Dinner is nice, family is nice, but the aftermath is not. The tree somehow loses it's charm on December 26th.

But back to the presents. I'd still like toys, though, instead of sweaters. Grown-up toys. A new cell phone. An iPod. Something that I can spend hours programming and customizing to be mine. But I'll take the next three weeks of baking and planning and shopping and watching A Christmas Story again and again over gifts any day.