Why I Made My Kids Give Me Christmas Presents

My sons see me as a baker in desperate want of holiday oven mitts. Someone who really needs one more pair of slippers. A woman who should start considering jewelry to add to my assortment of sweatshirts and sweatpants, most especially anything with “mom” on it. They have worried I’ll run out of mugs or specialty teas. They’re certain a thick pair of Christmas-themed socks are always a good idea, and if you asked them what kind of chocolate I would most like to eat they could tell you in their sleep. And don’t even get them started on my shark thing. Wine glasses etched with a shark, Jaws t-shirts, you name it.

They know me, these kids. They know the version of me who was their mom when they were little and they know the version of me who is their mom now. And I fully believe they know me because they have always, their whole lives, given me Christmas presents.

It wasn’t too easy when they were little, especially our first Christmas as a single-parent family. When I went to the mall and bought myself a sweater and gave it to my aunt to give to the kids to give to me. My face hot with how weird it all was, how pointless it all seemed. They were so little, my boys, the youngest barely even aware of the whole Santa thing I would force-feed them until they wearily told me around 11 or so, “It’s okay mom, you have to stop now.” Back then my kids were two and three years old, my “big” kids just 7 and 9. Why was I putting on this complicated charade?

I wanted them to think about me, even a little. I wanted them to experience the unfettered joy of watching someone you love open a gift from you.

I couldn’t have told you then. I can now. I wanted them to think about me, even a little. I wanted them to experience the unfettered joy of watching someone you love open a gift from you and see their delight, the relief found there. Maybe especially that year when we were all so sad. So different. So low. I wanted them to know how good it feels to give.

It wasn’t just for me. I gave them each money to buy each other a little present. Christmas morning came and I watched them all. Pausing their own gift opening to watch me open my sweater. Anxious. Wanting me to be happy. “I picked it out because I know you like blue,” one of my sons openly lied, his face hopeful.

That was my favorite sweater. For a long time.

Other years they bought other presents, sometimes with my money, sometimes with the help of my mom. Sometimes they made me a present at school, Christmas ornaments for the tree. A camel, a paper plate with red and green tissue stuck to it. A pine cone Christmas tree. Their delight palpable, round hands reaching for me and saying, “You like it right mom? You like it?”

When they got a little older, their gifts changed. Just like they did. Years of slammed doors and rolled eyes behind my back. A dip in their report cards, skipping a bit of school. Smoking pot in the basement and trying to cover it up by saying there was a skunk outside. Months and months of worrying they were becoming people I might not like.

I am not who I thought I was to them. A shapeless, voiceless blob in the kitchen. They see me. They see me.

And then December. And then Christmas morning. And then suddenly, there they were. Back. Mine again. Pooling their money from their after school jobs to buy me a warm hat. Books about writing. Black and white photos of Paris, travel guides, journals to fill for when I would someday maybe go somewhere. Reminders that oh my god, they know me. They paid attention. I am not who I thought I was to them. A shapeless, voiceless blob in the kitchen. They see me. They see me.

And every Christmas morning it was there in that pause. First with me and then their brothers. It was in that pause that I really met my sons. It was there we all met each other. “I got this for you because…” or “remember you said you liked…,” always a story to be told behind the gift. And this is the thing they are desperate to share with each other. The guffaws, the bursts of laughter, “What? Oh my god this is hilarious!” and “How did you even remember?”

These gifts were our way back to each other, small and insignificant as they might have seemed. Commercial as they might have seemed.

They are young men now, and every once in a while I’ll see the holiday stress in their faces. Hear it in their voices. So two years ago I asked them to write me their favorite Christmas memory. I asked them because I didn’t want them to spend money and I asked them because I wanted to know. What did they see? Really?

It was embarrassing to ask them. A cliche, like we were characters in a Hallmark Christmas movie and this would teach us all the true meaning of Christmas. The exact kind of earnestness that was sure to annoy them. Or turn them away.

These gifts were our way back to each other, small and insignificant as they might have seemed. Commercial as they might have seemed.

Instead, they humored me. As they always have. And this was the greatest gift I’ve ever gotten in the whole of my life.

After dinner was finished on Christmas night, the dishes done, everyone drifted back to their own corner to be who they’re going to be apart from us. I found my chair. A glass of wine. And read the story of us. Private moments I’d long forgotten or didn’t notice in the first place. They gave it back to me.

Maybe it’s cheesy or corny or too sentimental, but yes, you could say their gift to me felt like the true meaning of Christmas.

Jen McGuire's book NEST, about raising her four sons and learning to live alone, is available now.