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Thank Yous for Christmas

Everyday this holiday season I would walk past Santa’s workshop on my way to work.  Kids were waiting in line to tell Santa Claus exactly what they want for Christmas.  And the parents lagged behind them looking like Night of the Living Dead, half-heartedly trying to keep them from fighting with each other.  The whole thing is just one more obligation of parents this time of year.  I get to see all of this first hand and it’s no Christmas carol for me either.  I work in downtown Baltimore where retail stores cover the few block radius like tinsel; we were flooded with families daily.  Lunch rushes started at 10:00 A.M., service tickets called for smoothie after smoothie, extra whipped-cream, lots of cherries.  By Christmas Eve I felt like Walt Griswald without his bonus; but, I survived.  On December 26^th the Inner Harbor was a ghost town; not a child in sight.  When I passed Santa’s workshop I had to shed a tear.  The only people were the workers taking down the decorations and packing them away.  Poor Santa was forgotten.  He worked tirelessly through the year to make all of the children happy, and was no longer needed.  No one stopped by his workshop to say, “hey, thanks for all of the hard work, we really appreciate it.”  It’s time for him to move on and prepare for next year.

            Kids have it pretty good during the holidays, huh?  Everyone’s bending over backwards to make it extra special for them.  The poor parents, running around to every store in town to find a Wii, a PS3…Tickle Me Elmo?  I’m not sure, I’m a little out of touch.  Some parents have to do so between their two jobs and on small budgets.  They’re out buying trees, hanging lights, baking cookies.  If you’re like me, abstinence and birth control won’t always save you from this.  People with extended families spend time and money waiting in retail lines, wrapping presents, crossing state lines for little runts they barely know and have no idea what they might want.  And for what?  The kid to tear into the present toss it to the side and move on to the next one?  Well, if you’re lucky the parents might remind them to say thank you.  We try to tell our kids that money doesn’t just grow on trees, but it sure seems like presents grow under them.

            I hope I haven’t turned you off; I’m not Scrooge McDuck. I have a lot of kids in my family that I love and am happy to do these things for them.  But I also don’t want to see any of them on My Super Sweet Sixteen crying because their Dad bought them the wrong color Mustang.  We all want to teach our kids to not take things for granted and appreciate other people’s hard work.  However, it’s easy to lose sight of fundamental values under the hordes of wrapping paper and boxes.  Christmas can be a hectic time. Most of us just want to live to see the New Year; responsible parenting will be the ’08 resolution. 

Actually, we should look in the mirror before we come down on our children.  We take so much for granted ourselves.  What is the average salary for teachers or law enforcement?  Think about how we treat our veterans.  Money should never be an issue for them.  As a bartender, I complain that costumers don’t appreciate how much time and work goes into giving them quality service; then I forget to scrape my plate for the dishwasher before I put it in the bus tub.  We’re all guilty of this.  We live in a very luxurious era of this or any country.  Our meals hunted, cooked and packaged for us, our trash magically disappears from behind our houses, with cell-phones we can be reached at anytime or anyplace in the U.S.  Our safety, health, and freedom; all provided by the hard work of other people.  The craziest store every Christmas shouldn’t be Best Buy.  It should be the Hallmark store; the thank you card aisle.

            So I say we drag our kids out of bed and make them wait in the long lines of Santa’s Workshop, after Christmas.  Sacrifice a day of their Winter Break; just like their parents had to do.  Then with no more presents to ask for, they’ll sit on his lap and say thank you.  And while we’re at it, we’ll thank him ourselves.

Happy Holidays!