Saint Frances Cabrini Parish

Father Kleppner - December 6, 2009

Curb Expectations for an extravagant Christmas
Keep priorities in place and be creative.
By Dr. Marilyn Barton
Several years ago a woman in her 60s sat down in my office and handed me a beautiful big orange. It was two weeks before Christmas and this was my gift from her.
With a beautiful smile and sparkling eyes she shared her memories as a child. Her family had little money but clearly had a deep sense of Christmas and a great love for each other.
They were each given an orange as their gift, and the fragrance continued to evoke joy in her and a sense of family presence and closeness. That day she blessed me with her memories.
Another year I had a very different kind of Christmas visit with my nephew’s family in Indiana.
He was successful. His house was lavishly decorated, the goodies were plentiful and the gifts to his two daughters, 8 and 11 years old, were extravagant.
The girls delighted in showing me their gifts, but were quick to tell me what they wanted but didn’t get. It was a pleasant visit, but there was little of the true spirit of Christmas and everyone was busy on their own with their new things.
I left there thinking about the extravagant expectations those children have in place for the rest of their lives. Perhaps they won’t have the same level of income or material benefits. Will they push for them anyway and go into debt?
I have to admit that I also have shared with my family a sometimes too materially focused Christmas.
But one year, in the midst of a troubled time, I learned an important lesson. We had very little money and we had to be creative.
I asked each family member to pick a tradition, game, song or special memory and share it as their gift to the rest of us.
It turned out to be one of our most deeply personal and family-affirming Christmases. We had a tree and the decorations we used year after year, many of them made by the children. We went to midnight Mass and afterward lit candles on Jesus’ birthday cake and sang him “Happy Birthday.”
He was our most special gift and guest that year. The next day on Christmas we shared our “gifts” with each other. First were some old slides from family camping trips. We played a hilarious game of “Spoon”, read a children’s story called “Three Boys in a Tree” and just had a terrific time together.
We all felt reaffirmed in the goodness of our being family, and we had been gift to one another – with very few material gifts having any part in it.
In my work as a psychologist, I hear people talk a lot about stress. Stress is very related to expectations. If we expect a lot, we feel deprived if the current situation doesn’t measure up.
People aren’t as willing as they used to be to save and make sacrifices so they can have what they want in life later; they want it now, whether it’s realistic or not.
Frequently when I feel tempted to buy something, I ask myself, “Do I really need this? Let me live without it for another month or two, then I’ll decide if I need it.” This way of thinking has saved me a lot of money and clutter!
Instead of accumulating clutter in our lives, let’s really be there with the people we love, going deeper and becoming more personal.
If we continue on the same old path, thoughtlessly giving our children higher expectations than they are likely to be able to meet, we contribute to a situation that builds stress and leads to the gradual breakdown of family and society.
I have come to believe from my work and from my own life that the most fundamental stress in our lives comes from living falsely in some way.
It comes from trying to be what we are not. It comes from trying to control things that we can’t control. Living simply in the truth of who I am and what I can and can’t do is both a great cure for stress and a ground for peace.
Simplicity fundamentally involves living the truth and ordering everything in your life according to the facts of your situation.
In this time of financial stress in our country and our world, perhaps the truth calls us to rethink our Christmas traditions and expectations and to live more simply, more personally, more creatively in that truth.
Barton is a psychologist in private practice who specializes in Family Systems Theory. She frequently speaks at area parishes and is a member of Madonna DelCastello Parish in Swissvale.

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