The Year I Only Put the Lights On
A quiet Christmas, a spiral notebook, and the gifts that last
When I was a kid growing up, my mom kept a spiral notebook in which she listed every present everyone received for Christmas, including what was in the stockings.
My brother, my mom, my dad, and I each had our own page, which sometimes spilled into two depending on the year.
I found the spiral notebook she kept when I first moved back into my childhood home to care for her in 2021. I set it aside, knowing I would want to look through it at some point.
Four years later, I finally took the time to look at the lists.
As I did, I couldn’t help but smile at the simplicity and appropriateness of the gifts I received each year, and also at the discipline mom had to keep a record like that year after year.
This is the first year in my life when I did not decorate the Christmas tree with ornaments. I put lights on it and the angel on top, and I also hung the garland with lights and clip-on birds on the front stairs banister.
And of course, I hung up mom’s stocking and mine.
Outside of this effort, though, I just haven’t had the desire or energy to do much with Christmas decorations.
Based on what I’ve been seeing online, I’m not alone in doing Christmas 2025 low-key. Plenty of memes have filled my feed on Instagram expressing a lack of interest in going all out.
One particular writer I follow posted a thoughtful reflection about not feeling the spirit this year. She titled it “Neither Merry nor Bright,” and here is an excerpt:
“If you haven’t sent cards this year or forgotten someone’s gift, if you don’t have matching pajamas or a festive family photograph, it’s okay. If you can’t find the energy to be merry and bright or your tree isn’t even decorated yet, that’s fine. If you don’t feel like watching your favorite Christmas movies or honoring the traditions that you normally always do, don’t sweat it. My friend, these things don’t matter. This year has been hard, really hard.”
It’s definitely been a mixed year for me, and in next week’s post, I will share my reflections about 2025. For now, here’s a screenshot of the list of presents I received and from whom when I was two years old.
It’s interesting and fun to look at what I got. I was particularly delighted to see that I received a package of fruit stripe gum, which I loved chewing for years until my teeth couldn’t handle sugary gum anymore. I also love seeing I received pots and pans, The Lollipop Tree record, The Little Engine That Could record, animal dominoes, and magnetic letters and numbers.
At two years old, I was already being primed for my life’s work as a writer and an educator and then, in about the seventh iteration of my career, a podcaster. Never underestimate the power of the present to influence who you become.
I feel blessed to still have my mom with me, that I will be celebrating another Christmas with her this year. My dad’s been gone for four years, and I miss him every day. My children are both in Oregon, celebrating with friends and family out there. I saw them in late October, and counted that visit as my holiday time with them.
I see people post on social media about parents who have passed and how much they miss having them during the holidays. I also see plenty of posts by young people who have walked away from their parents or their families for reasons that make sense to them.
Apparently, this is a growing trend, adult children wanting nothing to do with their parents or families of origin. I don’t know enough about the trend to comment in any detail at this time, but it does make me sad knowing not everyone gets a great family.
I recently read about a famous family that is currently experiencing a public feud between parents and adult son, with him blocking his parents on Instagram and other social platforms. Behind the scenes, people close to the parents say there’s a lot of hurt feelings on both sides. I don’t know enough about what’s happening to say any more than this, but I can say this story also makes me sad.
Life’s too damn short for extended bad feelings, and I also respect that everyone has their own reasons for what they choose to do with their lives.
The world can be a really hard and mean place. With current events being what they are, it would be easy to become hardened by the things paraded across the nightly news.
I do my best not to let things outside of my control impact my daily life. Most of the time I do a pretty good job. This holiday season I’m choosing to celebrate in a quiet and more private way, reflecting on Christmases past when the room was full of people I love, including my children, and the mound of presents spilling out from under the tree was massively ridiculous.
There won’t be many presents under the tree this year and I’m okay with that. When my mom asked me a couple of weeks ago what I wanted for Christmas I said, “I have everything I could possibly ever want.”
And I do. Except for a Mercedes SL500 convertible in sapphire blue metallic with cream leather interior, but I digress.
In the spirit of giving, I suggested she could buy me a couple of journals, which I picked out at Michael’s and wrapped and put under the tree to unwrap on Christmas morning.
How cool would it be to find a recording of The Little Engine That Could next to the journals, or a pack of fruit stripe gum in my stocking, although I know I won’t. I can at least imagine myself at two years old tearing open the packages, and mom writing everything down on the list, and later my dad putting the record on the stereo and everyone listening to the story that reminds us anything’s possible when you put your mind to it as I stuffed four or five pieces of gum in my mouth at once.
I can imagine what the holidays were like for my parents back then, when my brother and I were tiny and didn’t yet understand what Christmas is really all about.
I can remember all the Christmases when my own children were little, the squeals of laughter and joy and delight upon seeing what awaited them when they came downstairs in striped Hannah Anderson pajamas.
Those memories will forever be fixed in my mind, and they are enough to carry me through the rest of the season and well into the new year.