If you are thinking this will be a heartwarming Christmas story, you couldn’t be more wrong.  AND, if that’s the reason you ended up here, I am sorry.  However, before you turn on your elfin heels to stalk the web in search of lovely warm tales of Christmas miracles and Santa, take a gander at this little story.  It may make you smile…AND, there IS a moral in it!  So…it’s better than the Gift of the Magii…it’s the Gift of the Christmas Lamp!  Yay. 

Christmas when the kids were small took on a different meaning than it does now.  As adults, we tend to enjoy the season of getting together with family and friends, imbibing in all the great food and drink people tend to have out, relaxing and generally having some time away from work and stress.  Gifts are second or third on the list or simply not that important to us.  For the kids it was dolls and dresses, trucks and musical instruments, a much needed new movie or video game.  For Hubby, Christmas is awesome, but it took us (me) a while to figure that out.

Hubby has a bad habit of saying incessantly he wants ‘nothing’ for Christmas.  He stated continuously that as long as the kids have some of the things on their lists, he was happy.  This line is repeated so often leading up to Christmas Day, that after 22 years of hearing it we have become deaf to the whole lecture.  “Yeah, yeah, we know” we say and make sure he has gifts under the tree anyway.  It wasn’t always the case.

One Christmas when the children were very small, Hubby was particularly adamant that he, again, wanted “nothing for Christmas.  I mean, it.  Nothing.”   Me, taking that serious statement as totally the way he wanted it, abided by it.  Kinda.

I mean, I had to get him SOMETHING, right?  Right.  So I did.

Christmas morning found us bunking at Nanny’s so she could be with the kids.  We arose to all of us crowded around in the small living room, the children eyeing what Santa had brought them.  We doled out what was under the tree and watched as they gleefully tore open their packages.  I had a sweet pile by my side.  “Mommy, where’s Daddy’s gifts?”  one of the children asked.  They were so sweet then….  “Well, Daddy said he didn’t want anything, but he may have one under there…”

That’s when I swooped in and brought out the impossible-to-wrap-one-of-a-kind…you guessed it…LAMP.

I got him a lamp for his desk.

The look on his face was…well, surprise?  Guffawed?  Yeah…guffawed.

“YOU GOT ME A LAMP?!”  He was incredulous.

This was not just any lamp.  This was one of those banker lamps from the 80’s with the two columned black iron solid base that weighed a ton.  It even had the green glass light on top.  It was so…so…so much a lamp.

Me:  “In my defense you said you wanted nothing for Christmas, right?”

Him :  “Yeah, but…”

Me:  “So, if you wanted NOTHING for Christmas, I at least got you something you can put on your new desk.”

I was rather proud I had thought of something practical.

He turned it around.  Set it down on the floor.  The kids all gathered around and said “You got a lamp?! “ and laughed.  I think Nanny felt sorry for him…”Umm…it’s a nice lamp…”

Him: “Yeah, but…but it’s a LAMP.  WHO GETS SOMEBODY A LAMP FOR CHRISTMAS?!”

Me:  “That’s what you get when you ask for NOTHING!!”

The rest of the day, family was dropping by Nanny’s to see what the kids had gotten from Santa.  They showed them their gifts and proudly proclaimed “AND LOOK, DADDY GOT A LAMP!” but couldn’t pick it up to show because it was too heavy and awkward and could have been used to train a weightlifter.  The fun was never ending after that.  Teasing, holding up the lamp…”That’s it?”  His brothers and sisters were looking, stunned and totally amused and amazed at the awesomeness, I’m sure. “That’s what you got?!!  A lamp?!!! HAHAHAHA..”

I still bring up the whole episode when I hear the “I want nothing for Christmas” shit one too many times.

So, kids the moral of the story:  Don’t be an asshole, or there will be a lamp under the tree….at least it will have a Christmasy green light!