What does your child want for Christmas this year?

My kids are older now, so gift giving is somewhat easier – getting gift cards, money, athletic gear, YouTuber merch (yes, I’m using teenage slang now. 🙂 ), or music — and they are happy campers. For me, sure there are things that I’d like, but nothing that I need. I feel unbelievably fortunate.

At home, one evening near dinner time, my younger son was sharing some of his favorite sayings at school. He threw them out rapidly and each one made you stop and think. I was impressed, but the one that stopped me in my tracks was, “there’s no pause button in life.” I said, “Did you hear that from someone or did you come up with that yourself?” He replied, “No, mom, I came up with that myself.” I think I saw an eye-roll before he went about sharing other favorite phrases he likes to use at school. Now, I know my son is not the first person to come up with or use this phrase, but the fact that it resonated with him, and he understood what it meant, blew me away.

I ask my family to join me to see the luminaries lining a nearby lake every December. It’s a tradition I’ve been trying to create for many years (even blogging about it previously). This year, it was raining the night of the luminaries. The rain was supposed to move out, but hung around. I told my kids it was time to go and they both protested in a way that I knew that while I could force them to do it, none of us would enjoy ourselves. So, my husband and I went by ourselves and walked the lake in the rain. We commented on the pros — lesser crowds and no kids protesting; the cons — it was raining pretty hard, and our kids weren’t with us. We had dinner following and talked about how it will only be a few more years before our oldest is out on his own, and only so many more times to walk the lake together as a family. It reminded me of what my younger son had said — that there is no pause button in life. Oh, how I wish there was. The hard times, I might want to fast forward through, of course, but there are those times when you want to slow things down, maybe even backup and do them over, but you can’t. There is indeed no pause (reverse, or fast forward) button in life.

All I want for Christmas this year is for my family to be together, and enjoy our time together. The kids promised they’d walk the lake with me next year (we’ll see if that actually happens or not), and that’s enough for me for now. 🙂

What do you want for Christmas?

I will be off for the next few weeks spending time with family, returning in January. Happy Holidays!