A Love of Art

This year Christmas morning dawned warm and clear, as I was ushered out of sleep by the pounding bass line of a choice compilation of 1990’s electronica.  It was about 8:45, after all, and despite the fact that Oscar and I were still sleeping, Ivan (who’d already been up for an hour and a half) needed to get the day started.  A quick call to my parents and about an hour later, the Christmas morning present extravaganza of the Mead/Larcombe house had begun.

Long live tradition
I’ve already discussed that we are not tied to tradition, but if you’re going to celebrate a secular Christmas at all, you’re giving at least a nod to convention.  For my parents (who’ve had a rough year) 2009 was a welcome departure from the usual X-mas trappings (we ditched the turkey – neither Ivan nor I actually like it, and the other components of the typical mountainous Yuletide feast.  Instead we snacked throughout the day on delicacies including olives, cheese, a variety of delectable dips and spreads, individualized quiche, ginger-glazed chicken wings and wasabi cashews).  We started with coffee and then rounded out the experience with a series of mimosas (in most cases using pilfered juice from Oscar’s stash).  Quite satisfying.

Despite this culinary departure, from my perspective, we were living bastions of tradition: there we were in the frozen north (despite the fact that it was brilliantly sunny and my mom was tempted to move the party outdoors onto our balcony), Christmas carols on the stereo (although most leaned toward a bluesy rendition – that and a lot of Elvis’ Christmas selections thrown into the mix), the room dominated by an 8 foot, live Christmas tree (which, although beautiful, does strike me as being a little gratuitous and/or wasteful – I have, most years, tried to avoid the real thing in favour of, well, mini-lights on a nice house plant).  And then there was the mountain of presents.

Sober considerations
This year, as in so many others, the adults decided to stem the flow of gifts to one another and stick to whimsical (although sometimes very serviceable) stocking gifts.  As an exception to this rule and true to form, my mother couldn’t help herself: my parents both have a generous streak that overrides their best intentions of frugality.  And then Ivan just had to get me one little thing… but overall, the adult exchange was pretty subdued.  The same cannot be said of Oscar’s experience.

A healthy relationship to materialism
At three years old, Oscar is no stranger to gifts.  Throughout our travels, we have always tried to throw in a liberal helping of kids’ parks and a few choice toy stores (to break up the art galleries and wine tastings).  The whole family loves restaurants (one of Oscar’s first words and directives: ‘Let’s go to an AN-DAUNT (restaurant)’), and the secret to exquisite toddler table manners is lots of engaging activities.  Often we pick up a new trifle on the way to dinner (nothing elaborate, just new).

We certainly don’t always oblige, and maybe it’s this inconsistency that’s kept him on his behavioural toes.  Oscar tends to ‘visit’ with the toys and then leave willingly, talking about how someday MAYBE we’ll buy the latest coveted thing.  You’ve got to love his balance and sense of inevitable justice.

Christmas is, however, a departure from all this.  As the only child and the only grandchild, Oscar made out like, well, a bandit.  A stocking so full he could barely lift it.  Three times his body weight in presents under the tree.  He’s learning to read and so before every present was opened he spelled out the name written on it (and was unfailingly pleasantly surprised when O-S-C-A-R spelled ‘Oscar’ – every time).

A Christmas nightmare?
We can all envision it: the caricature of the monstrously greedy child on Christmas morning.  Ripping open present after present, barely even glancing at the contents before moving on to the next ‘score’.  We weren’t sure how the morning would play out – last year in Barcelona was fairly moderate, as Oscar was only two and (we thought) easily overwhelmed by quantity.  As it was the two dozen individually wrapped model animals kept him pretty busy…

This year, thanks to being a year older, school and aggressive North American marketing, Oscar had the concept of ‘Santa’ down.  We worried a little.  Was the mountain of gifts going to send the wrong message?  Had we gone too far?  Were we polluting our otherwise innocent and empathetic child with rivers of base materialism and greed?

We needn’t have worried
As is ‘traditional’ in my family, we generally start with the stockings, break for an elaborate meal and then continue with the bigger, more exotic tree gifts.  Growing up as one of a family of four children, you can imagine that this process often took the better part of the day.  This year it was a little less structured and Oscar kept forgetting about his stocking (‘there’s still more?!’).  We kept drawing his attention back to it and its myriad little gifts.  You see, in my family there has always been a chronology to the present opening – first the tiny stocking items, then the lesser tree gifts, all leading up to the one big item you’d yearned for all year.  Apparently Oscar hadn’t gotten the memo.

So it turned out that after opening a fabulous MegaBlok mini-action knight and dragon ensemble, Oscar went back to his stocking and pulled out, well, a glue-stick.  In the right order, this would simply have been a primer gift for the extravaganza to come; in reality a poor alternative to the glitzier, toy-oriented variety of gifts.  Right?

Wrong.  Oscar’s reaction was fantastic: a quick intake of breath and, ‘Oh my god – a glue-stick.  I’m so happy!’ He then rapturously held the fabulous gift up for all of us to see.  Now, the kid really likes art, but you wouldn’t think that a glue-stick, even his very own glue-stick would warrant that kind of joy.

And it just got better from there.  True, he did get a little overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of books that he received (we’re half-way through Judy Blume’s Superfudge already), and we took a break for naptime, opening the rest of the gifts that evening, but truly we have an awesome kid.  Appreciative, generous and kind.

Another lesson?
Regardless of religious affiliation (or lack thereof), shouldn’t we all strive to be happy with our equivalent glue-sticks?  At the real risk of sounding platitudinous, isn’t Christmas actually about love, gratitude and together-ness?  If I look back through the years of all those traditional family Christmases, that’s what I remember.  Time spent with my generous, sometimes infuriating, lovely family.  The presents were just gravy.

I’m so happy that Oscar already seems to realize this.  That love, family, friends and a sense of thankfulness and connectedness are what ‘Christmas’ can be, and I think should be, all about.  Maybe as he gets older we’ll have to help him remember it.  Right now he’s the one helping us.

(And the glue-stick?  It’s primed for some pretty exciting art-projects – stay tuned…)