It's not often one gets to reflect on the passing of time and the brevity of moments that come and go with it. But in this run up to Christmas I find myself looking back at my childhood and comparing it to my children's. I remember waiting for Christmas and thinking how far away it was, then it came and then it was over, and then it was another interminable period of time before the next one. I know this is how my children are feeling now. They are helping themselves willy nilly to their Playmobil calendars (given to them by a friend, hands down, the best calendar I have EVER known.) it doesn't matter that they now won't have anything to open for another 3 days, it's the opening and the having that seem to be the order of the day.
I have given this at least 20 minutes thought, and I really think that this all comes from "stability". My children, so far, have grown up with two parents who only fight in the mornings on a regular basis. I grew up in a family where my parents were at war, most of the time. Divorced by the time I was two (parents, not me) and the law courts seemed to be the only place that decisions could be made. We were at two different homes, (3 if you count country pad, you're probably weeping at the hardships of my massively overpriviledged life!) we had about 3 different Christmases, 4 holidays a year and I was shipped from school to school to school until I was so used to it I kept everyone far enough away so as to enable me to flit from one social group to the next without being missed or pulled up. Mother died when I was 12, putting an end to the mother father feuds but not to the hither and thither, boarding school life affords. This disheveled, broken home upbringing, seems to have bred permanence in me I believe. I can keep anything, forever. I have lip balms dating back to the dinosaurs, when The Body Shop "was must have" as opposed to "last minute retro". I still wear clothes that I was given at Christmas when I was 17. Fashion means nothing to the stead fast! The only trouble with this though, is when I lose something, or someone asks to borrow something, I have a real fight on my hands to remind myself that it isn't the end of the world, sometimes things come back, and sometimes they don't, no one is dead or pregnant, embrace transient.
My children on the other hand, would spit a sweet out mid mastication if it weren't for the fact that it were a sweet and they are determined to have no teeth left by next week. They keep hold of NOTHING. Scalves and hats are fleeting ideas, we buy them, people present them, where the hell are they all though? My youngests Taggi's have traveled far and wide and never made it back. My brother had one shipped from Japan for her birthday (as the Taggi company has stopped producing the originals) and we've lost that a thousand times. Now, I, like Gollom, don't allow "The Precious" out of my sight because I feel the loss so deeply. Youngest is sad for about a mili second and then goes off to open another door of the calendar, rip something off the wall or attend to any of the fenced goods she keeps turning up with, to include two pens from two of her teachers, we've taken them back twice, one of them has arrived back here. Cleptomania, it turns out, is for life not, unfortunately, for Christmas.
I do have to say though, having reflected for another minute, it would appear my eldest seems to be a little better at it. She has things she hasn't even opened. necklace, ring and bracelet combos still in their packaging, crafty things in their boxes in the "craft hole" in our house. She, like me, goes a little bonkers sometimes when she loses something, and I know that it's my evilness that has stamped that into her. She sees transience as the plague. I admire her for that, to cherish and nurture is to value in my book. However, she can't make her mind up for love nor money. She knows she wants an animal that moves, but she originally asked Father Christmas for a remote control horse, we aren't getting a real one and that's final, but I said it wouldn't fit down the chimney, so she said she'd have a remote control puppy, kitten and pony, and a skipping rope that counts and lip balm and all the things my sister has on her list and..."
Perhaps these are all bad examples, and at the end of the day, who actually gives a shit? Shower them with everything and hope they're grateful someday. Don't shower them with everything and perhaps they'll still be grateful one day. Transience is life, the only thing we can actually be 100% certain of are death and taxes, and as far as I am concerned I wish neither of these things upon my children, so remote control whatever the f*** ever and a thousand Taggis and all the rest of it it is. They may not thank me, but my goodness they'll love Father Christmas, they'll have a smile on their face, and by that time I'll probably be drunk so to hell with forever and permanence, it's Christmas cheer and excess we're all about these days, isn't it?
I have given this at least 20 minutes thought, and I really think that this all comes from "stability". My children, so far, have grown up with two parents who only fight in the mornings on a regular basis. I grew up in a family where my parents were at war, most of the time. Divorced by the time I was two (parents, not me) and the law courts seemed to be the only place that decisions could be made. We were at two different homes, (3 if you count country pad, you're probably weeping at the hardships of my massively overpriviledged life!) we had about 3 different Christmases, 4 holidays a year and I was shipped from school to school to school until I was so used to it I kept everyone far enough away so as to enable me to flit from one social group to the next without being missed or pulled up. Mother died when I was 12, putting an end to the mother father feuds but not to the hither and thither, boarding school life affords. This disheveled, broken home upbringing, seems to have bred permanence in me I believe. I can keep anything, forever. I have lip balms dating back to the dinosaurs, when The Body Shop "was must have" as opposed to "last minute retro". I still wear clothes that I was given at Christmas when I was 17. Fashion means nothing to the stead fast! The only trouble with this though, is when I lose something, or someone asks to borrow something, I have a real fight on my hands to remind myself that it isn't the end of the world, sometimes things come back, and sometimes they don't, no one is dead or pregnant, embrace transient.
My children on the other hand, would spit a sweet out mid mastication if it weren't for the fact that it were a sweet and they are determined to have no teeth left by next week. They keep hold of NOTHING. Scalves and hats are fleeting ideas, we buy them, people present them, where the hell are they all though? My youngests Taggi's have traveled far and wide and never made it back. My brother had one shipped from Japan for her birthday (as the Taggi company has stopped producing the originals) and we've lost that a thousand times. Now, I, like Gollom, don't allow "The Precious" out of my sight because I feel the loss so deeply. Youngest is sad for about a mili second and then goes off to open another door of the calendar, rip something off the wall or attend to any of the fenced goods she keeps turning up with, to include two pens from two of her teachers, we've taken them back twice, one of them has arrived back here. Cleptomania, it turns out, is for life not, unfortunately, for Christmas.
I do have to say though, having reflected for another minute, it would appear my eldest seems to be a little better at it. She has things she hasn't even opened. necklace, ring and bracelet combos still in their packaging, crafty things in their boxes in the "craft hole" in our house. She, like me, goes a little bonkers sometimes when she loses something, and I know that it's my evilness that has stamped that into her. She sees transience as the plague. I admire her for that, to cherish and nurture is to value in my book. However, she can't make her mind up for love nor money. She knows she wants an animal that moves, but she originally asked Father Christmas for a remote control horse, we aren't getting a real one and that's final, but I said it wouldn't fit down the chimney, so she said she'd have a remote control puppy, kitten and pony, and a skipping rope that counts and lip balm and all the things my sister has on her list and..."
Perhaps these are all bad examples, and at the end of the day, who actually gives a shit? Shower them with everything and hope they're grateful someday. Don't shower them with everything and perhaps they'll still be grateful one day. Transience is life, the only thing we can actually be 100% certain of are death and taxes, and as far as I am concerned I wish neither of these things upon my children, so remote control whatever the f*** ever and a thousand Taggis and all the rest of it it is. They may not thank me, but my goodness they'll love Father Christmas, they'll have a smile on their face, and by that time I'll probably be drunk so to hell with forever and permanence, it's Christmas cheer and excess we're all about these days, isn't it?
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