Then one year, it all changed. I can remember this year as ‘Castle Greyskull Year’ (Google it if you know not of the awesome-ness of which I speak). I woke at an hour that I now know as a father to be unacceptably early and attempted to see if the day could start. Before I could get to the door, the whispered excited voice of my older brother informed me of glad tidings: ‘Mum and Dad said we can open everything as soon as we wake up’. With more glee than the entire cast of Glee on a particularly gleeful occasion I made my way downstairs and made light work of the gifts under the tree with my name on.
Then I thought to myself, ‘Why does my brother not seem to be as excited by this change of rule? Why does he not join me here in this present frenzy?’ He did not join me because the wall had not fallen, the regime was not broken and my parents had not changed anything. I had been tricked. My sobbing reaction was enough for him to help me re-wrap all of my presents. It was all fine in the end and of course - I love my brother and we get on well now.
For years though it bugged me that we always had to wait until after lunch. Our parents would say, ‘You’ve already waited so long, a few hours more won’t hurt’. Looking back I can see I was a bit of a whiney little so-and-so and my parents deserve a medal for not striking me for being so needy. As kids we took part in nativities and would have read the story about the baby born in the manger, but ultimately we were kids and we couldn’t stop thinking about the presents. We were distracted by what might be in the boxes and bundles under the tree and from the month of September we would go through the Argos catalogue cover to cover on a regular basis.
My kids are not that different. However last year we had a wonderful moment on Christmas morning. Our little girl Evie woke up extremely excited, jumped up and ran away from us as we handed her presents, because she wanted to get from her cupboard a small ‘thing’ made of Lego for us. She was so excited about making us happy. Yes, I did cry. But for that moment she got it. She had grasped what as adults we often miss.
Jesus came as a baby for us. He wasn’t born to please himself and the real joy of Christmas is seeing that his birth was the single most selfless act that we’ve ever known. Christmas is most definitely about giving. Receiving should only ever be a bi-product of this. His birth was a game-changer and a regime breaker. Let us all change the regime this year and make it all about the giving.
Have a great Christmas.
Lloyd Kinsley is Youthwork’s designer.
