The Real Christmas Spirit, My Story about Nana

I’m a task driven and goal-oriented person.  I have a hard time understanding the importance of small talk, especially when it seems like small talk isn’t required to accomplish a goal.  It also means that I lose touch with the importance of having a festive spirit.  In my mind, every Christmas light I put up is a Christmas light I have to take down after the holiday season.  Neither experience is pleasurable for me.

My wife is much better at this than me. 

Years ago, she started a tradition of giving monetary gifts to the teachers that work with our children.  She might have asked me about doing it at first.  I imagine if she did, I would have given a Scrooge-like answer… “Isn’t that what their wages are for?”  Either way, she acted without telling me what she was doing…

One day I showed up to drop my kids off at school, and all the teacher’s eyes were beaming.  They were flagging me down in the hallway to say “Thank you!”  I was confused.  I like my children.  I think they do too.  But I didn’t think they liked my children that much.

I got home and asked Judy what she did.  She explained she gave them money and told me how much it was.  I gasped at how much she gave away.  My scrooge-heart palpitated.  But then when I remembered the looks on the teachers’ faces, I realized it was a good decision.

We’ve kept this tradition for years. 

The cake Nana baked and her Card

Last year, Nana sent us home with a home-made cake and a gift plate.  Nana works at Kindercare in Ballenger Creek, Frederick. She cooks for all the children every day.  Taped to the top of the cake was a card.  In the card she hand-wrote a note telling us a story.

Every year around the holiday season, she bakes nonstop.  She bakes cookies, cakes, pies, everything.  It’s an important part of her family’s holiday season. 

One day, her twenty-year old mixer stopped working.  It just died.  It had lived a good long life, but it died at the worst possible time… during the holiday season.

The next day she got a holiday gift from us.  It was the money she needed to go buy a new mixer.  She started to cry when she saw the money.

She made the cake to say thank you to me and my wife.  We didn’t know what we were doing, but we had helped Nana continue her family’s Christmas traditions.  In turn, she included us as part of the tradition.

This year, in October, Nana’s granddaughter Morgan Suter was killed in an automobile accident. 

Some people reading this newsletter might remember my LinkedIn post.  Some of the people that follow me on LinkedIn were even kind enough to give money to the family.  Nana doesn’t know that… I never told her. 

Morgan was 27, and she was rearended by a tractor trailer.  The driver was impaired by painkillers.  Morgan had worked at Kindercare and helped raise my kids.  Her mother worked at Kindercare for years.  Nana is her grandmother, and Nana has been feeding my children since they were 3 months old.

My family went to the viewing.  We supported them in any way we could and felt appropriate.

Today, December 20th, I showed up in the morning to drop my children off.  There was a cake on a gift plate, with a card taped to the saran wrap.  Nana smiled as she handed me the plate.

Inside, the card is written simply, “From my family to yours.”

I came home and asked my wife, have you distributed the gifts?  She told me she hadn’t.  She has to make a bank trip because the ATM won’t distribute bills in the denominations she wants.

Nana had given the cake preemptively and out of the goodness of her heart.

My scrooge-heart warmed in the same way his heart did when he watched the Cratchit family celebrate Christmas together.

I won’t ruin the story by projecting my own meaning onto it.  I still hate putting up Christmas decorations.  But I love Christmas.