By Vonnie Mostat

DURING my married years, I have attempted to give my children, and later my grandchildren, the Christmas I never had.

But my journey of excess caused my Christian family to become frustrated.

“Have to jack up the tree again this year, Mom?” my married son once asked.

“Nana, you don’t have to buy everything on our wish list, you know,” my recently baptized granddaughter told me this past summer.

I know where this compulsion of mine comes from, this November buying of candies, chocolates and goodies, this attempt to achieve gaiety with candles, Christmas music and presents.

It stems from a childhood where no one even came with me on Christmas morning as I walked downstairs barefoot in my nightie. The rest of the family were too busy sleeping off the drunk from the night before. The fireplace as cold as the room. A litter of empty bottles in the living room, and cigarette and cigar butts filling the ashtrays. Often the smell of vomit in the bathroom.

A bag was left for me by the fireplace. It contained socks, a toy, an orange and some nuts they had taken from the pub.

How do you explain to grown children that scars like that stay with you?

When I got married, I was determined our Christmases were going to be so different. When our children were young, I worked extra hours in order to buy them clothes and toys. And I baked, Oh, how I baked!

Surprisingly my adult children wanted me to cease and desist. Just a few presents each for the grandchildren, they’d say. Forget all the candies and chocolates – not good for their teeth or their soccer training.

Friends were becoming embarrassed by my gifts because they could no longer reciprocate.

I wanted a Christmas that was so opposite to the one I had. “If I don’t buy more, will they still like me?” I asked.

Continue article >>

 But you cannot buy love.

Every year I decided, “This year is going to be different. Less is more. A church service and a simple gift opening. Less shopping, less stress and less wrapping too.”

But the old insecurities kept coming back.

Then I became ill, quickly followed by early retirement from work and restricted finances. We just could not go on the way we had been.

But I fretted, “Will they still love me?” I had created a ‘precedence monster,’ and it was hard to change. I just started my Christmas buying earlier, in August.

Then came my husband’s retirement from work, and I no longer had a choice. My illness prevented me from roaming the malls and wrapping so many gifts, and I knew I would have to try the ‘less is more’ principle.

It was as if God himself had closed the doors to my excessive giving without any guilt or sweat. It just had to end, and I could do nothing about it.

The big question was: Could I change? My insecurities related love to giving things. I would have to reach out and risk, to see whether my husband, children and grandchildren loved me unreservedly whether I spent a lot of money on them or not.

We decided to give to missions in the children’s names. Maybe we could buy a goat or some chickens for a family through World Vision, or send more to the Union Gospel Mission.

So, this is the big year, the year when our tree won’t need jacking up. The year when we don’t have Christmas baking in the freezer until March. The year when we don’t have to rush out on Boxing Day in order to buy something else we do not need.

Christmas is not about giving or receiving for that matter. It is about Christ and what he did for us. It is about the wonderful Christmas Eve service, the carol singing. It is about the love of a wonderful family and church family.

God is my portion, and he is my gift this season.

December 2010