I know yesterday I talked all about Santa and how much I love to get presents and what not but I’ve always been a giver. When I was a kid (I’m talking four or five years old, here) I’d go rummaging through the bottom of my parent’s closets and find Christmas gifts for them – wrap them up and bring them out Christmas morning. I distinctly remember this one year I wrapped up some shoes and a purse that I found in my mom’s closet.

When I hit elementary school it was all about the crafts. Making little ornaments for mom out of clothespins and balls of cotton; begging my teacher to let me pull the trigger on the glue gun. Going to the gymnasium armed with the five bucks my mom gave me and buying her some fake diamond earrings for two bucks; using the remaining three dollars to buy a hand-made wallet for my dad and some cupcakes.

I remember making the stuff for the craft sale – the teachers put us kids to work for a day. About a month beforehand we all go through this craft catalog and pick out the items we feel we should sell. Goofy pencil toppers, Chinese finger traps, picture frames – some items required assembly and some were ready to go. When the crafts shipment came in we had to sort everything out before forming teams – each team was responsible for assembling something. Putting googly eyes on a pom-pom or putting glitter on a Popsicle stick. We were all cogs in the craft sale machine, making the items we’d end up buying for our parents for Christmas and the PTA keeps the profit.

I don’t do craft sales anymore, obviously. I have a job. I make money. And with that money comes better, more thoughtful gifts. For instance, my mom’s favorite toy as a kid was her Barbie Dream House. This was like 1963, I believe. It was destroyed when my mom’s house burnt down and she wanted one ever since. So, I got her a 1963 Barbie Dream House for Christmas one year.

I started doing right by my sister, as well. A good keyboard one year, a computer the next. Robin got spoiled, as well. Fashions, movies, musics, tickets – whatever she wanted plus some surprises every year.

But, like I said, I’m a giver. And a giver gives to those that need before he gives to those that want.

Every year since graduating college Robin and I have adopted a family in DC that couldn’t afford their own presents. We’d get everything on their kids’ lists plus some extra clothes. We’d even get some extra luxury items for the mother and gift certificates for whatever grocery store is close by.

We’d deliver the presents ourselves. One year there were two kids, the daughter was out with her father but the son was home. The boy had a ratty Playstation and he wanted a wrestling game for it. He knew we got it for him and while we sat down and talked to his mother he kept begging her to let him open it. She finally caved and me and the boy went into the kitchen to play video games together (he kicked my ass).

The mother shared with me some letters she was trying to get published by The Washington Post. Pieces she wrote about what goes on in her neighborhood every night and how nobody cares. Letters about the idiot kids that live on her block and make her son’s life hell. We’re not talking high school bullshit, we’re talking guns fired through a window as a prank and severe beatings on the way home from school. About how the cops treat her like a criminal when she calls to file a complaint. How they never followed-up with her and were never able to find her report when she called back.

I don’t know exactly why but I saw my mom. The environment was different, sure. My dad was around and he was as much a part of my life as my mom was. As far as I know, my parents never asked anyone for help – my father worked two jobs and my mom took a job when they needed the extra cash. Our neighborhood, whereas not the nicest neighborhood in Brooklyn, was tight – we had great community. But there’s something about the struggle to be a mother, I guess. Single mom, two kids, scraping to get by – writing letters to the papers because the cops don’t take her serious when she’s trying to protect her son.

Struggling. Asking complete strangers for help. Not money. Gifts. For her son. So that he can have a good Christmas. So that he can play a wrestling game on a used Playstation his absentee father bought him.

That’s a mom, you know? You put my mom in the same situation and that’d be her.

Robin and I stayed for a while. Playing video games, talking – the mother insisted we had some cake and coffee, neither of which were good but we swallowed it all down. She cried when we gave her the grocery store gift card – she thanked us nonstop as we were getting ready to go. We drove away and left them on their doorstep, the two of them smiling and waving at us.

And just like that their Christmas is over.

I’m not going to be the guy who just sits here and says that all my sins are cleansed from one evening of charity work. I’m not going to pretend that two-hundred bucks to spend at Safeway, some clothes, and a Playstation game is going to leave any sort of lasting impact on anybody. But that’s also not going to stop me from doing it every year.

I guess this is part story, part plea. I set you up by starting all warm and fuzzy. I apologize. Yes, this is a trap. But the truth is, there are families that need a break for one day. There are families with lives that are worst than yours will ever be. There are mothers out there who just want their kids to have one great fucking day but they can’t afford to give it to them and it kills them.

There’s plenty of time till Christmas. You can still adopt a family. This year we’re adopting two families. One through the Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry and one through the Arlington-Alexandria Coalition for the Homeless. I’m sure there are plenty in your own communities. See what you can do.

‘Tis better to give, after all.

Labels: dc