Trares
The warning was explicit, in no uncertain terms.
“Anthony’s Secret Christmas Stuff — DO NOT OPEN” read an envelope strategically placed in our office.
The message had been the same for the past few weeks. “Don’t look!” Anthony would say as he hunched over his art supplies, hard at work.
With the holiday season upon us, the Trares household has been focused on checking everyone off our gift lists. We’ve been brainstorming ideas for moms, dads, siblings, friends and more. Though my wife and I have taken the reins of gift-giving, Anthony likes to help too, and he’s given ideas of what we should give.
He’s also wanted to get in on the generosity himself. We’ve tried to make clear that we give gifts to the people we care about because we love them, not because we feel like we have to. And he gets that.
But this Christmas, he’s run into a dilemma: He doesn’t have any money to buy presents; we haven’t started giving him an allowance yet.
So if Anthony can’t buy the people he loves gifts, he’s decided to make them.
“That’s the best I can do,” he told my wife.
As anyone who reads this column knows, Anthony loves being creative. More often than not, he’s spread out on the kitchen floor, drawing cartoon characters, making up his own board games or creating decorations for around the house. Last week, he drew a collection of gingerbread entities, from a “gingerbread athlete” to “gingerbread dino” to “gingerbread ghost.”
It’s not uncommon to find some random doodles of Mickey Mouse or Pokémon characters or Spiderman on scraps of paper around the house. The other day, he made and decorated a fleet of paper airplanes.
The point is, art comes naturally to him. I’m sure his thinking was, why not use it for my Christmas presents?
Most nights this week, Anthony gathered his box of markers, crayons, glitter, construction paper, stickers and much, much more, then crouched in the space that doubles as my wife’s office and his toy room. We’re not allowed to go in his workspace, and we have to wait until he’s done and cleaned everything up before it’s safe to walk in.
We follow his directives with good humor. There is joy in seeing him understand the importance of generosity and giving of himself; I remember as a kid, it was hard to escape the “gimme-gimme-gimme” nature of the Christmas season.
My parents tried to keep me grounded and stressed the holidays as a time to give, not receive. We’d sponsor families in need, and my mom and dad made me feel like part of the effort by getting to pick out some of the toys or other presents for the kids. I know my wife’s parents instilled the same values in her.
My wife and I have carried that over to Anthony. During the Thanksgiving holiday, he volunteered to help my mom pick out a new gift for a needy child while they were out Christmas shopping.
I know looking at the shelves filled with new action figures or construction sets, he was probably tempted to ask for a present himself. But he never suggested “just one tiny toy for me?”
Instead, he stuck with the mission at hand — “I want to be sure every kid has a Christmas,” he told me later.
Proud dad moment there.
One afternoon this week, a present appeared under our Christmas tree. The wide, flat box was covered in red-and-green pieces of construction paper hiding what’s inside. The gift tag reads, To Mommy, From Anthony.
Maybe I’ll get one “To Daddy” in the coming weeks (although, Anthony keeps warning me that I’ve been bad this year, so maybe not.)
But no matter if anything is waiting under the tree for me, I’ve already received an amazing gift this holiday season — seeing the spirit of generosity blossom in my son.
Ryan Trares is a senior reporter and columnist for the Daily Journal. Send comments to letters@dailyjournal.net.
