When I was a kid I remember having such definite dreams about Christmas gifts. One year I was sure I wanted the GI Joe with the Kung-fu grip. Not sure what the draw was for that man-doll back then. I just knew it would be cool to have one. He had a tiny little fist that was separated in half at the palm and when you flipped the lever in his back down his hand would close into a magical kung-fu grip that could fuse carbon steel. Well, I never really tested out the whole metal fusion thing, but I was convinced it could happen.
The cool thing about GI Joe toys was that there was no GI Joe cartoon back then, no GI Joe Movie, nothing. GI Joe was an imaginary character that did not exist in reality or in TVLand or the Movies. At the time, my favorite cousin in-law was actually enlisted in the Marine Corp and away from home serving in some place called Vietnam in a war that affected me very little at the time other than the absence of one of my favorite playmates.
Jodie looked a little like GI Joe. So, it was easy to imagine that when we were fighting crime with GI Joe, Jodie was there taking out criminals left and right with his kung-fu grip. When we were saving the damsel Naked-Barbie from Ken’s chronic domestic abuse, Jodie was there rescuing the poor girl and sweeping her into his arms after high-kicking Ken in his bronzed-tan face. Of course it was only temporary, because Jodie was married to my favorite cousin Sandy, and Naked-Barbie was always convinced by Ken’s multiple apologies and bouquets of plastic flowers that life in the dream home with Ken was all she was good for. For some reason Barbie never had clothes on in my house. I think it was a bit of a trade-off we made. See, I grew up with four brothers, no sisters. So, it makes sense that Barbie would be naked, thus… Naked Barbie.
The year after that it was Stretch Armstrong. Stretch was a rubber man that was filled with what had to be radioactive jelly. As you tugged on his arms and legs they would stretch to the furthest extent of the rubber making him the amazing stretching man. That is until Stretch developed ulcers in his armpits and the inguinal region of his crotch. Not just ulcers, but bleeding ulcers. That gooey clear jelly stuff would get on you and it was a little like getting rubber cement on you. It did not come off easily, soap and water did not work to remove it. It took days for that stickiness to go away. Kids I knew back then that owned a Stretch Armstrong are now dead from cancer. Just saying.
Life is easy when you know what you want for Christmas isn’t it? The question is fairly benign, but if you think about it, when you know what you want for Christmas, you know a lot. You probably know what it would take to make you happy, and that is more than most folks can say. Sure, sure the obligatory response is, I just need my family and I will be happy, or I just want to be home with those I love and around my friends. But, when we are honest, most of us have settled for realities that are far from what we REALLY want. Isn’t that true?
I mean do you really have the greatest job in the world? Maybe you do, but most people, the lucky ones are somewhere between “well at least I have a job in this economy” and “I get paid and it’s not complete torture.” Many others hate their job.
Are you really with the person you want to be with for the rest of your life? Is there really such a person? Do you even like your kids? Is there really just one thing that you could receive at Christmas that will make your life significantly better? Is there? Be honest. Do we really even have something in our head when asked “what will make you truly happy?”
Life was so simple when I was a kid. That GI Joe, Stretch Armstrong, Huffy bike, roller skates – those things made my life wonderful as a kid. They were all I needed to ensure happiness that year. Maybe Christmas is about making our kids happy by getting them that one thing, but for adults it’s about learning to be happy without that one thing. Maybe Christmas for adults is about longing, awaiting, expecting. I mean, the thing about Christmas is this. Jesus comes, but then he goes doesn’t he? He goes in such a gruesome way. Life is kind of like that. The things we long for, the things we await, they do come eventually, but then they are only around for awhile and then poof – their gone.
That is why we learn to appreciate what we have. It’s not because we can’t go out there and get better. It’s not because we are doomed to only have a little. It’s because we know that everything is fleeting, everything temporary. Even when we get exactly what we want, we almost always have to give it up. On top of that, we almost always want more, don’t we? More.
We learn to appreciate what we have because, what we have is just like all those other things. It is just as temporary, just as fragile, yet just as good. As we get older we learn that everything and everyone have a lot in common. That toys break, that family is just that – family. They are part of you. Anything you don’t like about them is probably your fault, because they are really part of you and you of them. That the perfect person we thought we wanted to be with proved to be crazy, sickly, or perfect for some other guy or gal. That the job we thought we wanted, turned out to actually just be “work” in the end.
Maybe Christmas is about realizing that nothing is right, everything is wrong. It’s about knowing though that things will be better one day. It’s about longing, awaiting, expecting for that perfection. It’s about Jesus, and other stuff. I wish each of you a very Merry Christmas. Love what you have – who you have, and if you find yourself longing for more, join the rest of us in that longing. It’s called being a grown-up, welcome to it.
Maybe if Naked-Barbie caught on to this strange kind of Christmas Spirit, she would have left Ken eventually and gone to a shelter for women, taken him to court, divorced him and gotten the dream house, sold the house and went to college, and ultimately built a life for herself of “not enough” like the rest of us.
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