Our Christmas miracle was that no one had a fight, no one threw a tantrum, no one cried, and the kids helped with the dishes with a fair approximation of good cheer. Christmas in our house was, we all agreed, much better than usual. Nettie and I decorated gingerbread trees with gold and green sugar glitter and hot-cocoa cookies side by side, listening to a Spotify playlist of wintery or winter-adjacent songs (“Sweet Thing” by the Waterboys and “Now Westlin Winds” by Dick Gaughan, because music from the Gaelic nations is wintry by default, in our opinion). Teddy admired our balsam fir from the Kiwanis tree lot and audibly admitted the red tartan decorations made the rooms cozy. The turkey was not dry and the only cooking mishap was that I made the red cabbage and apples a little too sweet.
Both teenagers seemed genuinely satisfied with their modest hauls of loot (fashionable wide-legged pants and Birkenstock sandals) and, perhaps even more pertinent to maintaining the upbeat mood, mama was happy. If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy! We have crossed over an invisible bar, progressed past an invisible mile marker, from a childhood dynamic in which all the giving goes in one direction into a nearly grown new future in which my son and daughter actually bestirred themselves, changed out of their plaid pajamas, put on their white sneakers, went to town, and bought me presents I actually wanted. I’m inordinately pleased with my pine-perfumed candle, my box of ornamental safety matches, and the gold pinkie ring they pooled together to buy, to replace one I lost while weeding in the garden last spring.
Have I complained about this in print previously? I think perhaps not. But until December 2025, my children had distinguished themselves by not getting me proper gifts, like, ever.
Only two years ago, in November of 2023 — a year that will live in Rattray family infamy as the Annus Horribilis, due to my own extended hospitalization and various financial and family calamities — they committed a grievous sin that they will possibly never be allowed by their mother to ever forget (although I hope that now it may eventually be looked back upon with a chuckle rather than silent fuming): They presented me for my birthday with a bag of Almond Joy. That was it for my birthday gifts in 2023: a bag of Almond Joy, patently and obviously fished out of a supermarket discount bin of leftover Halloween candy in mid-November. Had I ever been in the habit of keeping candy bars in the house, handy-by? No, I had not. Were the kids very young and terribly sweet when they so thoughtfully got me a bag of Almond Joy for my birthday? No, they were 14 and 16. Had I not explained repeatedly and loudly within earshot of my entire family that, as a human being, I am rawther childish and live optimistically in expectation of treats and surprises on holidays and birthdays? Yes, I had!
Every Christmas for the last 11 or so years, I either had to tolerate an empty stocking hung by the chimney with care — actually empty, down to the toe, as I’d forlornly discover like a ritual when I went, before the annual opening of gifts began, to grope it — or I had to fill my stocking for myself. I got into the habit of ordering a few things, wrapping them early, and hoping I had forgotten what it was by December 25. (This actually worked not so badly. I got myself, for example, notecards with green songbirds on them via air mail from Svenskt Tenn in Stockholm, and a tea towel from the Radical Tea Towel Company with a quote from the Shawnee warrior Tecumseh on it and was pleasantly almost surprised come the Yule.) Such is the lot of the modern American mother. The ignoring of the mother on Christmas is such a common predicament they are now making “Saturday Night Live” skits and Netflix movies starring Michelle Pfeiffer (“Oh. What. Fun.”) about it.
Well, this Christmas I woke up early to bake an egg-and-sausage casserole and drink my espresso while the bairns were still a-bed and when I groped my stocking, passing through the living room, I found there were things I hadn’t bought for myself in there! These turned out to be a small square bar of herbal-scented soap; a single-serving can of Tip Top Old Fashioned cocktail; a made-in-England coaster with a smiling striped cat on it, and two of those adorable little oval tins of Anis de Flavigny sweets from Paris, in lemon and licorice. (The Anis de Flavigny tins make perfect pillboxes, by the way.) The kids really got all that right. I do love a good coaster.
My son and daughter theorized, as we sat amid the pile of torn wrapping paper eating Swedish bonbons and thumbprint cookies with our hair all a-mess, that perhaps having a tighter budget for Christmas actually makes the gifting better, because more care is taken to make the right choice. I think they are onto something. Nettie and Teddy told me that in fatter years — less lean years, when they were just a pair of skinny elves in footie onesies — they’d always get an armload of Christmas gifts from mama that had slightly missed the target and ended up spending the year in the dark inside a cardboard box under their bed. Nothing went under the bed this week. We have so much to be grateful for.