A number of years ago when I was still working full time, I was setting out to mail a birthday card on my lunch break. A quick glance in my wallet showed I only had a 20 dollar bill – still a bit rich for me to stick into my nephew’s card. So I zipped into the lunchroom to see if any of my co-workers had change.
“Oh, how old is your nephew?!” one of them exclaimed, reaching for her purse to see if she could help.
“Forty-three,” I replied, realizing as I said it that perhaps I was stuck in a decades-old pattern that no longer served anyone.
Sure enough, they all laughed at my quaintness. How funny he must think it was, they said, when he opened his card to see the unchanged monetary gift year after year. For awhile $10 was likely considered somewhat generous, but the years have flown by and my card economics hadn’t kept up. When they found out he’s a principal at a big city school they found it even more hysterical, although one of the older fellas generously stated that he could buy himself a cup of coffee with it and think of me. By ‘older’, I mean a person precisely my age who was likely lost in thoughts of his own outdated gift-giving habits.
One of my colleagues told tale of when his family had the hard conversation to halt cash exchanges in cards. The decision had been made by the extended family unit, and the one big decision took the question out of a whole bunch of teeny weeny sums. Their decision extended to cards of every season, including Christmas. He admitted that his kids got the short end of the stick, since they were the youngest and had the least time to benefit from whatever amount of cash a person might cough up. Ripping off the band aide meant there would be some (the eldest) who would have benefited more greatly from this cultural exchange, especially if they had invested the coinage and benefited from compound interest through the decades as our forefathers had advised.
Was it time to draw a similar line in my extended family? I mean, my nephews are so dear to me that I still want to slip dimes into their desserts. Clearly it was time, though, since when I brought it up to my nephew he not only applauded the change – which had apparently embarrassed and annoyed him – he declared the line also involved his own children. What?! I could no longer send a tooney to my great-niece and nephew? Granted, one is in college and one is finishing high school. But still, I didn’t realize my proposal was to encompass young children!
Alas, the line was drawn. We would give the gift of time, making even greater effort to be part of one another’s lives all year long. We would move forward with gestures and activities both old and new, but that are approached with a greater awareness of what they mean to us and why we’re doing it.
Thing is, they will ALL always be children to me, so sometimes I cheat a little. It is Christmas after all! It’s time to share. Anyone have change for a $20?