My son’s in that sweet twilight period of Christmases past; neither completely ignorant of what Christmas is, nor so radically materialistic that he forms his entire year around it. He’s three and a half, whereas my earliest memories of Christmas begin around four, by which point I was so gleefully mercenary I read the Argos catalogue like a holy text and frequently scoured our home for hidden presents as early as summer.
This latter activity was merely good operational sense, since I spent much of my childhood being gifted presents for my younger brother Conall, by well-meaning aunties and uncles who couldn’t get my 10 siblings’ and my name, correct. No such event was more traumatising than when he, aged three, was given a double-barrelled Nerf gun with plastic scope, while I, aged six, was given a small train that played nursery rhymes. My father, very much the Pontius Pilate of early 90s Northern Ireland, refused to accept a mistake had been made. This left me to dejectedly push my sad little lullaby locomotive round the living room carpet, while being pelted with foam projectiles by a toddler holding a gun so big he could barely lift it above his knees.
My son, on the other hand, is still young enough to enter Christmas with a certain glad cheeriness, but without much in the way of actual expectations. Since my wife and I are both Irish, we refer exclusively to Santa, and it is unclear whether he knows this person is the same one his nursery friends refer to as Father Christmas. We could start referring to him as Father Christmas ourselves, but such an affront to Irish culture would be too traumatic to contemplate, and if anyone back home found out we’d almost certainly have our citizenship revoked.
He’s clear that Santa brings presents, and this week he asked if he could draft a letter to that effect. We accepted his demand, with happy thoughts of minting magical Christmas memories. In the event he became quickly distracted, decided he was actually writing to his nana, and then drew a whale, before abandoning it altogether.
It leaves us not sure what to get him, but reasonably confident he’ll be happy with anything. And therein lies the rub. I’m fully aware that the season is too commercialised. But for some reason, his ambivalence underwhelms. What do you get the child who’ll take anything? I should be delighted that he has not been corrupted by the materialism of Christmas but, shamefully, I feel the opposite. It’s as if, once it’s been shorn of avarice, some essential aspect of childhood Christmas is missing.
I chide myself for being impatient with his reluctance to be as covetous as I was. I should learn to enjoy it while it lasts. It’s either that or we get him an old Argos catalogue. That ought to speed things along.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Séamas O’Reilly is out now (Little, Brown, £16.99). Buy a copy from guardianbookshop at £14.78
Follow Séamas on Twitter @shockproofbeats
