Flipping the Hanukkah Gift Script!
"If commercialization and expectation have ruined a bit of the joy of receiving and giving gifts, we can reclaim the fun part if we bring back to it the elements of surprise and delight!"
By Allison Fishman Task
Kids and holiday gifts.
Every year, I work my arse off for kids gifts for Hanukkah.
Eight freaking days of this nonsense.
There are lists, and there’s nonstop consumerism (as my son says – “Mom, it goes from back-to -school to shop for holidays!”). That’s nuts. And phooey on me for our annual holiday tradition of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade — one neverending commercial with some high school baton twirlers.
So every year, I think it will go differently. Every year, it doesn’t. My three little beauties put on their yarmulkes and light a candle each night, just as we do each Shabbat. Then they sit in the present-receiving position, rip something open and invariably (*sigh*) look disappointed.
Dopamine? Serotonin? I don’t know what it is, I just know that even though they get exactly what’s on their list, they feel bad when they get the thing. They’ve thought about it, hoped for and wanted it, and then it’s over.
It never lives up to the anticipation.
But this is the Baker Mayfield jersey you wanted! Jazz Chisolm, number 13! The scooter, the necklace, the Nikes!
But all I see is the come down. Sad faces holding new presents.
And I’ve about had it.
Mama’s gone gangster and I insist we bring a little joy back to Hanukkah. Which blessedly coincides with Christmas this year. (Praise baby Jesus!).
So here’s what I did to change the game and girl — I’m never going back.
I studied that damn Elf on the Shelf.
I looked at the folks who love their advent calendar.
And I remembered that the best gift is the one you don’t see coming.
I set up a couple stockings (strike me down Adonai, I did it). BECAUSE, I’m celebrating winter solstice and my feet are cold. Snowflake designed stockings have nothing to do with Jesus.
I put out winter lights in front of my house. White icicles and snowflakes. BECAUSE Chanukah is the festival of damn lights and I’m tired of being a dark house. No manger, no Santa, just some white lights because it’s dark and the world needs more of it.
First time, and I’m not going back.
And I decided to invest in some candy canes. Because they were on sale in early November and, well, they were peppermint. Yum. Also not Jesus-related and my whole family has a sore throat. Candy canes, I see you.
Here’s the magic. I decided that whenever I gosh darn feel like it, I will give my kids a gift this season. When there’s a gift in the stocking or thereabouts, I will put a candy cane on the edge of the stocking — as my son said — it’s like when they put the flag up in the mailbox so you know you’ve got mail.
So, that.
Candy cane out, you know you’ve got a prezzie.
Let’s go.
Oh, wait. One more thing. In late November, I took my kids to a Home Goods store for a holiday shopping spree. I was thinking holiday blankets, decorations, pillows, whatever — let’s decorate the home. Sadly, it devolved into buying things they wanted. Joke’s on them! I hid the bags and…guess what goes in those stockings?
Chanukah mugs, hot chocolate bombs, hockey stick grip tape, claw clips…you catch my snowdrift. Small things, possibly delightful things if presented with some wisdom.
So my son came down the stairs on a random Saturday in December and I kneeled down next to his 5’ 4” 11-year-old man-child body and said to him — oh, wait, did you see what’s going on with the stockings?
His sneer said “I don’t care” but his eyes said “I’m listening.”
I pulled him in close and said: You see, when there’s a candy cane out, that means there’s something in the stocking — a gift, probably, and you should check it out.
Your brother’s stocking has a “Z,” your sister’s has a “C” — and yours has that “A.”
He stopped. He looked. And he had a hint of the smile I hadn’t seen since he was 7, the pre-Covid, pre-adult teeth times.
He moved to the stocking and held the candy cane. Whoa.
Then he reached into the dark depths of the stocking and found…
The playstation mug he picked out a month ago in Home Goods.
“I got the mug.” He said, with a big smile.
Yeah you did.
What did they get? He said. Motioning to sibling stockings.
I don’t know. They haven’t opened them yet.
Suffice it to say he introduced his twin brother to the tradition then ate his sister’s candy cane (she was at a playdate at the time).
But that smile. And the excitement he had when he got the mug. Well folks, that’s what I’m in it for.
I hate the commercialization and expectation that has ruined the joy of giving and receiving gifts. But my belief — now gone from theory to lived experience fact — is that we can reclaim the joy of giving if we return the element of surprise — and delight — to the experience.
What’s ruining Winter Solstice-giving — call it Christmas, Chanukah or Kwanzaa — is the expectations missed or achieved, and returning us to 364 days of anticipation.
The delight is in the unexpected. The surprise. That’s what I plan on returning to holiday giving in my home.
ALLISON FISHMAN TASK is a life and career coach and the bestselling author of Personal (R)evolution.
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