Putting up a giant wall this Christmas
I’m happy to be able to wish you a “Merry Christmas” again.
Of course, my glad tidings are true and genuine reflections of the profit and loss tally that will result in this year’s Christmas spirit.
A full accounting of which I’ve requested from the Congressional Budget Office.
I anxiously await their reply.
In the meantime, and in the service of this secular Christmas, which we celebrate as a nation by arming ourselves against any and all disappointments with plastic cards that accordion out of our wallets like all those pictures of babies and grandbabies no one at the office really want to gaze upon (but “oohed” and “ahhed” over politely anyway) I would like to formally surrender. That’s right: I give up. I will not find the perfect gift.
Or select the right color. I will likely get the size wrong.
I just want you to understand that I’m at peace with my failures in this battle.
I’d hold up a white flag, but I can’t manage to separate colors in this dimly lit laundromat of an economy. If I’m lucky the banner I pull from the front loader will be a healthy (if unwanted) shade of pink. My guess is, however, the object of my surrender will make its way into the Downey Soft scented air either a dull grey in hue or a distasteful brown.
I don’t think the kids will be too disappointed. They have their own money, saved by working odd jobs at the home front, not the least of which involves vacuuming the furnishings, and removing from them the inches of sediment comprised almost entirely of pulverized afterschool snacks.
In other words, they buy what their hearts-desire year-round with the change they gather from under the cushions and the loot the Tooth Fairy brings.
It took several years to explain to my offspring the value of only parts of dollars. And it wasn’t until my rap on wrapping coins (complete with practicum and a share of the proceeds) that small money started to matter to them in a big way.
This is not to say that I was an early adopter of the penny-wise practices of my Depression-era forebears. There was a time (not long ago) that I deposited the nickel-backs into the recycling right along with the cardboard and tin foil.
I dumped handfuls of change into an old coffee can every laundry day for years, never really considering depositing the contents anywhere else.
Of course, my fear now is that small money will be the only income left for our children to earn. A life of shop- ping carts filled with deposit bottles to buy half-slices of avocado toast.
They’ve already reached the age where they listen to media reports and swear worse than an entire team of Bad News Bears.
They would make Walter Matthau blush, rest his soul.
I can’t worry about that. Just like I can’t worry about which of their “friends” is most likely to snap and bring a semi-automatic weapon to school one day.
I will pray the manufacturer turns out to be Nerf.
We parents aren’t supposed to think about that. We have already planned for the worst. Our district (and no doubt yours) has already installed a buzz-in entry point with bullet-proof glass. Protectionism is now 9/10s of the law.
And when I think of protection, I, of course, think walls.
Walls so tall it would keep all these passportless redcoated idealists out of our hair.
I will build mine out of the gazillion and four throw pillows I have acquired since the last holiday season, and line the top with thousands upon thousands of slightly over-cooked toffee shards I will make each night until the New Year.
Siobhan Connally is a writer and photographer living in the Hudson Valley. Her column about family life appears weekly in print and online.