So, an opened box of Zone bars; a small wallet; a skirt and sweater combo; and I’m not even mentioning the book I gave Annie, who just now texted me that she finished it this evening, and it was “the BEST present EVER!” – all in the running. But they all got beat by Cheryl’s miraculous, clever gift to Jennifer.
Our family has couple of holiday traditions, both merged together on Christmas eve. A third of a century ago, when Cody could first sit in my lap without too much squirming, I started reading to my kids. I like children’s classic poetry, meaning A.A. Milne and Dr. Seuss. I read Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin stories so often, I wore out the copies I’d kept my from own childhood, and bought the two definitive volumes. The House At Pooh Corner, filled with the stories. And “The World of Christopher Robin”, all the poems, both “When We Were Very Young”, and “Now We Are Six.”
It was the poems I liked best. Like “Sneezles”. “The Knight Whose Armour Didn’t Squeak”. James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree. “Busy”. “Us Two”. I loved the sing-song of them all, the little stories they could tell, and the kids felt my love, sitting spell bound while I chanted them out.
One year, on the night before Christmas, instead of reading Clement Moore’s eponymous poem, I got the idea to read “King John’s Christmas” instead. (King John was NOT a good man …). At some point, I started doing it every year. When the older kids became late teenagers, they figured out it was a tradition, and started adding their own little bits. Like jumping all over me and the couch, pretending they were young again and jostling for position closest to Dad, splaying their legs all over each other, blocking Annie, the youngest, from the melee.
As the second decade of the twentieth century unfolded, we added another wrinkle. My sister, who calls Cheryl “the mother of my children” (she chose early on not to have any herself), beams in across iChat, or Skype, or FaceTIme, or whatever is best that year, she she and her friends at their annual party can listen to my recitation.
I’ve never missed a year that I can remember. Even a few month;s after my bike accident, when my larynx was crushed and my teeth were missing and my lower lip was all numb, flaccid and rubbery, and I thought I couldn’t possibly give Milne and his melancholy king the resonance they deserved, even then I mustered up my inner thespian to bring them back to life.
And one year, beneath my tree, just like Good King John, they wrapped up and gave to me a Big, Red, INDIA RUBBER BALL. I cried and cried when I saw that, just like Johannes R.
But that was not the best present ever, at least according to Cody, who is the arbiter of these things.
After the poem, we each get to open ONE present. If there are any guests present, they are given a present. This year, we had Jennifer, and her daughter Elizabeth and her boyfriend Kevin, and houseguest Jane.
Jennifer is one of my inspirations for retirement. A widow now, she often takes off for far-flung locales, with little advance notice. Portugal, England, New Zealand … she loves to travel, and is free enough to take off when she wills. I realised that all my life, I’d had to plan out 4, 5, 6 months in advance. If I wanted to go to, say, the Galapagos next month, I couldn’t do it. Eight other doctors, and who knows how many patients, were counting on me to BE there, for them. But now I can, and I can thank Jennifer for shjowing me this special virtue of retirement.
Because as a matter of fact, Jennifer IS going to the Galapagos, next month, and is starting to gather information so she can enjoy the history and geology of the archipelago. Cheryl decided to add to her knowledge by providing her with a mass of books about Darwin’s supposed inspiration behind the theory of evolution.
She handed Jennifer a bag filled with volumes on the islands. Jennifer opened them up and said, “What’s this? Did you buy them at the library or something?”
“No, those are library books. They’re due in three weeks, before you leave. I trust you; I know you’ll take them back. And then you won;’ have to find a place to keep them after you’ve gone.”
Cody was ecstatic. “That’s the BEST present EVER! Library books. Smart, ecologically sound. And the trust it shows – a great symbol of friendship. Library books. No clutter. The very definition of reusable. I love it.”