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I have decided our opinions on gift giving around the holidays are about as diverse as our beliefs around parenting. Some of us may spend months searching for the “perfect” gifts for each person in our lives while others wait until a sweet gift beams us in the head and a holiday gift shows up the following June. Some make all things homemade while others wish for new shiny things with lots of sparkle.

But one thing I do know is true- there appears to be rules about gift giving and if you are not following the “right” rules, then out come the judgy pants wagging their ugly sweater hipster motif of, ‘You’re Doing It Wrong!” So, I promise I am going to try to leave my own judgy pants at the door, but frankly…..I am just like everyone else, I am trying my damndest to find the middle way.

Some folks talk about how ridiculous the rest of Americans are for going overboard and how dare we want for anything. I have even learned from some hipsters that we are now doing it wrong if we buy goats for third world families, a once perfectly acceptable way to gift give only a few years ago (I think…..Hell, who knows). They are now rattling on and on about the different websites we should be tracking to make sure every item we buy does not come from slave labor or at minimum the items are only good enough if we buy them used from some schmuck who bought it new at the Walmart last holiday season.

Listening to the upper crust folks, they speak of this immense pressure to purchase not just the right gift, but it also has to be expensive and better than last year. I hear the same fear of not being able to be good enough to fit in with their peers when during the day after Christmas their showing off does not match or one-up their friends and family.

Just like when talking parenting and all other things created to make you endlessly feel unworthy, I will return to the one and only truth I am actually qualified to speak on and that is Myself.

I am certain that I am in some strange category of tree hugging oxymoron because I can on the one hand make my head hurt over trying to recycle, all the while, I will waffle over a pretty pair of shoes for weeks before buying them. Yep- haters get on board, I wanna preserve my little piece of the world for my daughter, but I swear I will be damned if I do it without some sparkle (and nice shoes).

And I get damned tired of being made to feel like a hypocrite because I want both. Perhaps its all a big lie and I cannot have both despite what I do, but I am gonna hang in there with my three inch heels on trying.

Growing up in my house, Christmas was what I refer to as the great giveaway. There were four of us girls and we loved the holidays! Sometimes we barely made it to 2 am before Santa gifts were unleashed and it was an intense amount of stuff, but what I cherish now is that my mother wrapped each and every gift individually with pretty bows and ribbons. My Dad had this cackle that signaled his utter joy in seeing us excited to share in the moment together. It is true that I can barely remember the stuff and true that much of it does not matter- but it mattered to them and to this day I would never want to make them feel bad or less than because they got caught in the Christmas madness that we all can and do. My truth here would be from Maya Angelou, “When You Know Better, You Do Better” and just last year my Dad said that he realized that he would have liked to have gone on more trips together instead.

Oh and how about ask me about some material items I own? Likely you will get some maybe too long story about the item and the relationship I have with the person for which I purchased it or purchased it for me. A woman once made an off-handed comment about my super fabulous hot pink handbag I have and the next thing she knew I was telling her about one of the most fabulous women I have ever known and how it was my going away gift. Don’t ask me about my jewelry unless you want some part of my life story and now my relationship with my best friend jeweler Georgia. Someone recently asked me about the carat weight of a recent piece and I laughed because it was a perfectly reasonable question, but I had no idea because that did not matter to me! But let me tell you about the journey, the craftswomanship and collaboration in the ring and it might be a 15 minute conversation!

So honestly, sometimes it’s like this……I feel bad if I think buying a goat is weird. Then I feel bad because others tell me I shouldn’t give stuff and I should only give money so when I help a family get their Christmas wish list, I am not only helping big brother Target-Walmart-SlaveLabor, but I am told I taking away their ‘right to get their own stuff’. Then I am told that I am just a stuff-grubber if I post pictures of my new pretty things that I want to tell you some long drawn-out (likely for you awful) story about where and how that came to be and I feel bad. So then my family and friends want to give me gifts during the holiday I can’t decide if I want to be excited in utter joy (because they are supplying my bad habit of shoes and purses) or tell them I am now being told I am currently on a no-gift diet and they need to return them promptly for a goat…..or clean water in a needed country. I am sure that would go over like a turd in a root-beer float as my family sometimes already thinks my behavior is too “women’s-lib” as they would say.

Yes, its obviously true that we can struggle with our relationship with stuff. I am just going to find the middle way and remember that we are all Good Enough. It seems that our philosophy and relationship with gift giving maybe a symbol of our relationship with ourselves and to wear our judgy pants about someone else seems mean and hurtful when we are all just trying to get it to ‘our right’. It seems possible that our relationship with things returns to the power move of intention. If I post a picture of my new purse I want you to see, please don’t make me feel bad about it, I really just want you to ask me about the story behind its meaning to me.

Besides, if every single human made not one more purchase, I think some economists would get a little freaked out about the whole market collapse thingy. So I say during this holiday season, buy your goat, your water, your cheap crap from a big box store, have an intimate relationship with local shop owners, recycle the hell out of what ever you can and if you can limit your vices- do it. Gift Giving can be the middle way and maybe with some meaningful intention setting, we can continue to guide ourselves towards Our Own Good Enough.

Dearest Mom,

Just about a year ago, you lost your dear friend and it prompted you to once again ask why we struggled so intensely in our relationship over the years. After almost 28 years, I felt like I had the courage to try again and say what had created such a grand canyon of a divide between us. Although it was not of our creation, the sexual abuse that I endured left us both terribly mauled, as if we were attached by a vicious army of black bears in our sleep. As a child, I looked to you to know how to heal, but I genuinely understand now as an adult, the shame that you experienced was so intense ~you buried yours and therefore mine deeper. Neither of us knew the cost. I have come to realize over this last year in the ongoing work of my own life that what my brother took from me that mattered the most was my relationship with you. Yes, there have been many differences we have had and I will still openly say I disagree with some of the choices that were made, but this was like a drenched and dripping wet blanket on our entire relationship.

But, I am ready for that to be different now. I know it continues to take time and I am so incredibly grateful for the daily and ongoing ways that you have reached out and connected in ways that you know how. The day I saw that you began to follow this blog I was both elated and petrified. I am well aware that having your life publicized is extremely daunting and I am sure there are many moments where you want to call me up and say, “Alicia Marie-take that down!” And frankly, I cannot blame you, but I have continued to come back to the realization that the more I lean into this life, the more that my courage (and ours) can serve as an example of how LOVE truly WINS.

So, on the eve of our next Christmas ~ I wanted to offer a circling back on something that I have been left with from our conversation a year ago.

One thing you said that has remained a deep regret was not being able to shop for my wedding dress with me. Despite what you may think, I did not purposefully leave you out, but I see now that our relationship was strained in such a way that at the time it did not occur to me that it would matter to you. Frankly, my desperately independent side thought nothing of going and buying it all by myself- which is exactly what I did. Only at the end was my my maid of honor, not an American native, invited to the first fitting. That ended up being a funny lesson in culture clashes because it had no significance to her because in the Taiwanese culture one does not buy a dress at all!

However, despite all of this, I recognized in that moment, it was a great loss for you, one of which you may not replicate again dependent upon how the rest of this life unfolds for our family. Obviously, I cannot replace this moment and the truth is that it has taken us all this time, some 12 years later, to even give voice to that sadness and loss. But, I want to, together, have something that we can do that allows you to be a part of what becomes of my wedding gown.

I am now twelve years married, seventeen plus years into my relationship with a beautiful man who just gets me. I have been able to break a long standing cycle in our family of marriages and divorce of three generations behind me. This dress to me symbolizes the hope of what we are capable of despite the many challenges that we face.

And although I cannot offer you the past, I wish for you to take my love, add yours and make something new we have created together.

There is a special program called Angel Gowns for families who experience the tragic loss of their newborn child. I am told that each wedding gown can make up to six gowns for children who are not able to come home with their family. This is such an unexpected loss and this program offers dignity to both the child and their family.

I have genuinely hesitated giving you such a “gift” for Christmas, because it really does look like a lot of work, especially to me, the girl who can barely sew a straight line, much less figure out how to make premie dresses out of my massive wedding gown. But, this I know; I believe that if a child could come and be the Savior of the entire world, then why can’t a few dresses of dignity for children and their families continue to heal ours?

Enclosed you will find my pile of a dress and a check to cover all the extras you may need to make our precious gifts a reality. My wish is that you will share with all of us your process, take lots of pictures and give them to your local hospital. Tell them that these dresses were made from the love of a mother and daughter who have fought like hell to not allow the shame of the past to wear away the possibility of relationship.

I know we still have a long road ahead, but I am grateful that for once ~ there is a road ahead of us.

Big Love, Your Daughter

P.S. Although you never know what will change, as of right now, your granddaughter does not want you to shop for a dress with her, she wants you to Make IT.

If You Wonder About Mom’s MAD Sewing Skills, See Below for just a Few of the AWESOME Things she has crafted for us: 

                                                                               LIVE.OUT.LOUD.