Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts.
~Janice Maeditere
The doorbell rang and I waved thanks to the deliveryman as he walked away fifty pounds lighter. I sighed when I saw the familiar, looping handwriting on the colossal box.
Every December was the same.
“Greg, Mom’s gifts are here. I need you to lug this inside, please!”
Greg moaned. “Another Mary Pat Christmas.”
I rolled my eyes, remembering the conversation I’d had with Mom only a few weeks earlier.
“Mom, please don’t send a million presents this year. We always end up throwing most of it away, and you can’t afford it.”
“You throw most of it away?” Her voiced dripped with hurt.
I backtracked. “Well, what I mean is that we just don’t have a use for most of the stuff, Mom. And besides, how much do you spend? The shipping alone has to be astronomical. You and I both know you can’t afford it. Please just… don’t this year.”
“But it’s fun for me, baby. I love being able to spoil you all like that.”
“You’d spoil us if you’d make something for us. Make a stuffed animal for the kids, or a pillow, or send us some banana bread. We don’t need all that junk.”
“Junk?” Drip. Drip. Drip.
Greg heaved the box inside and dragged it over to the tree. I grabbed the scissors and sliced through the tape, revealing a mountain of presents, each wrapped in shiny, stiff paper and tied with colorful coils of ribbon.
“Can you believe her?” I complained.
Ever the steady voice, Greg replied, “I know it’s frustrating for you, Shan. But it makes her happy.”
“But she can’t afford it!”
“I know… but you can’t make her stop.”
“I know.” I grabbed a gallon-sized garbage bag from the pantry. “You wanna try to knock this out before the kids wake from their naps?”
“Sure.”
We knew better than to wait to open the gifts until Christmas morning. With two little kids, it made no sense to lengthen opening time by an hour. Especially when most of the gifts wouldn’t be of interest to them, anyway.
The first thing I opened was a toothbrush. No enclosed container, no packaging… just a single toothbrush in a plastic baggie. I dangled it in the air for Greg to see.
We both burst out laughing, then tossed the contaminated toothbrush into the garbage bag.
Next, it was Greg’s turn. He was shocked when he pulled out a pair of Beats earbuds.
“Shan, these are really nice earbuds. Oh, wait a minute…” Looking closer, we noticed the packaging had Chinese characters on it. “They’re knockoffs,” he said.
“Well, maybe they still work well?” I asked.
I plugged them into my phone but couldn’t even bring them close to my head. The crackling would’ve deafened me.
Slowly, the garbage bag began to fill with a random assortment of items no one could ever use. Pens engraved with the name “Paul” (no Paul in our family), broken sunglasses, knitted leg warmers, every item from the Avon catalog, and a single, large marshmallow in another plastic bag. At one point we opened a gaudy, gold “family tree” necklace that looked like old-style rapper bling. I couldn’t help but laugh when Greg slung it around his neck and broke out into “Funky Cold Medina.” But it wasn’t just that one necklace. Because Mom bought in bulk, we soon opened a second family tree necklace. And a third. By the time we’d opened our fifth identical necklace, we were rolling on the floor, holding our sides.
Finally, we came to the last present. It was enormous.
“You want the honor?” Greg asked.
“Let’s open it together.”
We ripped the paper, revealing a box with a lion’s head on it. Looking closer, we realized it was a plastic fountain, to be mounted on the wall. Immediately, I called my siblings.
“Did you guys open your gifts from Mom?”
“Yeah… you?”
Suddenly we were all laughing. Each of us had received the fountain, the earbuds, Paul’s pens, leg warmers… even the toothbrushes and marshmallows.
As we collected the items that we thought we could use or donate, Greg pulled aside a pair of adult-sized slippers that looked like dinosaur feet and said, “Keep or donate? They’re way too big for the kids.”
I considered them. “Let’s keep ’em,” I said. “They might like them someday.”
Wiping our tears, we cleaned up before the kids awoke.
We didn’t know it then, but that would be the last box we ever opened from Mom. Less than four months later, Mom passed away suddenly from a stroke.
At the funeral, my siblings gathered in a hotel room and talked about our Mary Pat Christmases. We laughed about how we all should’ve invested in Avon. How she had once given my brother and his family piles of presents when they visited her in Florida from Brazil, where they lived at the time. Not only could they not use all the gifts, but they had no way of getting everything home — so they ended up abandoning most of it at the airport. Laughter flooded the room as we shared our treasured memories, one silly gift at a time.
Suddenly, they didn’t feel so silly. They felt priceless.
Right then and there, we decided that the best way to honor Mom each year would be to continue the tradition of a Mary Pat Christmas. We would take a ten-dollar budget, someone’s name, and a limited amount of time in Walmart to shop for things Mom would’ve picked.
Somewhere, Mom was laughing in approval.
When we returned home, I was unpacking when I heard a little voice behind me.
“Aaaaaaarrrrrr!”
“Hmmm?” I said, not turning around.
“AAAAARRRRR! Look at me, Mama!”
I turned to see my four-year-old boy, hands clawed, teeth bared. And on his feet, a pair of adult-sized dinosaur slippers.
I began to cry as my baby T-Rex stomped away.
“Merry Christmas, Mom,” I whispered. “Merry Christmas.”
~Shannon Stocker
