Christmas Lists: Then and Now(—Are we thinking of the giver?)
By Kathryn Magendie
At various stages of Kid-dom, my Christmas list would read something like this:
Real Candy, with chocolate – not that hard stuff, or fruit
Baby Doll with a Stroller
Pretend, but really works, Spinning Wheel with Yarn
Barbie
Bike – a new one would be nice, but used is fine, too
Pack of Old Maid Playing Cards
Parcheesi
Checkers
Horse – not a pony, but a Real Horse, preferably a black stallion that rears up and paws the air
Books – connect the dot, puzzle books, Black Beauty, Black Stallion books, Call of the Wild – any book about dogs or horses or wolves
A pair of black and a pair of white shiny vinyl knee-high boots
Blacklight and Poster
And, with the exception of the horse (dang), at one time or another, I received those gifts. Thing is, all of those gifts are tangible. One can go out to the store and purchase the item, wrap it up, and put it under the tree—again, with the exception of the horse, but that didn’t stop me from racing to the window every Christmas and checking to see if a horse was tied up in our suburban front yard. Yeah. Hope springs and all that. But the list is simple enough, although at various times in my life we were pretty danged poor, so those items weren’t easy to come by. Somehow, though, my mom always found a way to have presents under the tree for us. And the magical wonderful thing about that is this: whether we had asked for a certain item or knew it was best not to ask because times were hard, it didn’t matter, because once we dived under the tree and began unwrapping, we thought how everything we received was just what we wanted no matter what our list, spoken, written, or just dreamt, was—we were happy, even with the sack of fruit and hard danged ole candy.
Fast forward to my Older-dom, the post-published author phase of my life, and the list reads something like this:
New York Times Best-seller
Win a Literary Award
Number 1 (again please!) on Kindle
People to love me and love my books and think I am AWESOME!
Yeah, yeah: Love and peace and health and all that jazz, etc etc etc.
Write a book that goes viral
Oprah saying “and a Magendie book for YOU, and a Magendie book for YOU, and a Magendie book for YOUUUUUUUUU!”
Book to movie
Do you see the difference in those two lists? Other than the obvious, of course. In the second list, the items aren’t tangible; one can’t go to 
the store and buy them; someone can’t place these things under the tree where I’ll rip them open, happy-shiny paper flying willy-nilly, the givers grinning their fool heads off because they’ve made someone joyful. The gift wishes in the second list are Hah-Uge and for all but a few, could be almost unattainable. With a list like that, one could be forever unhappy at Christmas, forever feeling slighted, forever just a little bit sad. One could sit there among the twinkly lights feeling sorry for oneself while all the others are ripping open their packages with glee.
So this Christmas, I think I’ll alter my thinking. I think I’ll make me up another list. One that makes someone else happy in the giving. One that GMR, or my friends, or family members can happily and sneakily purchase, wrap up, and place under the tree, anticipating my reaction. For when year after year I say, “Oh, all I want is (above list),” I take away something magical and wonderful from Christmas. I take away someone else’s joy of giving.
And you? What about you? What is on your Christmas List this year? And is it similar to my second list? And if so, want to join me in hoping for something tangible, something wrap-able, something we can tear into on Christmas morning with joy and abandon? All the rest is dreams—and dreams can be dreamt any old other time. Christmas is for plain old greedy want of material thangs—just say’n! Yeah!
Merry Christmas, all y’allses!
Kat Magendie, author, Publishing Editor of Rose & Thorn, is the author of The Graces Trilogy (Tender Graces, Secret Graces, Family Graces), Sweetie, and of the novella Petey in The Firefly Dance. Her next novel, The Lightning Charmer, will be released fall 2013.
