Excess, or a Grandmother's Generosity Gone Awry
by Beverly A. Kipp

How do you take love, good intentions, great shopping skills, exceptional taste, and a genuine Christmas Spirit, mix them all together and end up with a recipe for excess? It's easy: let a grandmother do the cooking! A usually warm, wise, wonderful grandmother, can arrive Christmas morning heavily laden with what was meant to be arms full of joy and go away leaving behind the feeling that something is not quite right. How does this happen?

I remember Christmases when the grandmother in this story was a young mother herself and I was a little girl, and things were very different. My mother slaved over Thanksgiving dinner for thirty to forty family members, friends, tag-alongs and stranded strangers. For the following three days she made turkey soup, turkey salad and turkey sandwiches. Then, and only then, did she even begin to think about Christmas.

Preparations started with serious house cleaning by the adults while the children studiously oogled over the Christmas catalogue; we only got one back then. My brothers and cousins and I would lie on the floor looking at all the things we could possibly decide to want in the next four weeks. "Write your letter to Santa and we'll see," my mother would say when for the thousandth time we thought we had made up our minds. We did not yet realize that that meant maybe, not only if there was enough money, but also if my mother and father deemed our selection a worthy choice. "What do you want the most?" my mother would ask. "If you could only get one thing, what would it be?" One thing? What if it was the wrong thing?

But that never happened. On Christmas Eve the house smelled of cookies and fruitcakes and fudge and pies. For days we had been baking late into the night, then arranged platters and tins and trays and tromped aroun the neighborhood passing them out. On Christmas morning we would gather around the tree to open presents. There was always a new book, and for me, the only girl, always a doll — sometimes fancy, sometimes a tiny figurine or a handmade rag doll, but always, always a doll, each and every year until I was grown. And new clothes — new undies, socks, shoes, dress, coat. New to me anyway: newly handed down or newly handmade by my mother or grandmother. Once in a while newly store bought, but not usually. As we sat there, we watched as each person opened something, anxious that they too got what they wanted. It was very important getting the giving part right, and my mother saw to it that we learned that part well.

We are all grown up now and we have homes of our own. We are the ones raising children and it's up to us to see to it that all those wonderful things my mother taught us get passed on. We draw names rather than spend money on each person. We adopt Christmas families. We give to the local food pantry and bake for shut-ins and take knitted hats and scarves and warm wooly mittens to the church for the homeless. We even buy the new dresses for the girls for Christmas Eve services whether they want them or not.

So what does that leave for Grandma to do? Only buy gifts. Lots of them: all those gifts that she remembers we wanted from that catalogue but could not afford, the things we coveted but did not need and did not get and now no longer remember wanting. This is the same warm, wise, wonderful woman who could make socks and underwear, one new book, one doll, one gem in a stocking and one Santa gift into a memory that brings joy some forty years later. How is it that this very woman, grown wiser in every other way, now thinks more is better? Can it be that she does not know that the most valuable gifts are not store bought and never will be. That she, herself, is the embodiment of Christmas?

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Dear reader,

I wrote a longer version of this essay years ago when my children were little and I did not know how else to approach my mother about what my husband Dennis and I considered to be excessive gift giving. At first there were hurt feelings, but slowly things changed. Mom started bringing more books, which were a happy compromise. I also grew up . . . and came to see the other side of things. I even found a card that said "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" by William Blake and mailed it to her: she has it on her refrigerator with pictures of us, our kids and our grandkids. That was a turning point for us — an acknowledgment that I no longer thought I "knew it all," and that we could learn from each other. I share this with you in case you too, are a young family trying to find balance this holiday season. Happy Holidays.