A Reformed Grinch

By Troy Flint

I used to hate holidays. I was the Grinch that stole Christmas, Halloween, the 4th of July and Arbor Day. Too much hassle, too many arguments, and too much labor for so little benefit. Actually, I did look forward to some aspects of the holidays: (relatively) easy parking in the Lower Haight, potluck dinners and late night sessions with friends, boat parties on The Bay, and aimless strolls through deserted San Francisco streets.

Now, I’m ordering Thanksgiving wreaths online in July, buying three different kinds of poinsettias, and dragging the children around to 17 different Easter Egg hunts. Yesterday, I had to resist the urge to buy Christmas PJs for our 7-month old while I was on a Target run. You can’t say it often enough: kids change everything.

The aversion to ritual, to long-term planning, to time-honored (and possibly corny) traditions takes a major hit when kids come along. Suddenly you find yourself straining to remember every detail of holidays past, rediscover old recipes, and find new activities for your little ones. The kids won’t remember much of any it, but at least you’ll be able to embarrass them with photos 20 years from now and bore them by retelling the same mundane holiday stories for three decades in a row.

Holidays are for the children, but they’re just as much for the adults. Our eldest daughter’s crazed anticipation for Halloween candy (she’s three) was matched only by our enthusiasm to see her in costume and our pride at watching O and her little friend work up the courage to ring doorbells and scream “trick or treat.” “Thank yous” were harder to come by, but children are a work in progress. Parents are, too.

My wife and I are already lamenting the day when O won’t want to be seen in public with us, let alone go trick or treating with her parents. The possibility of loss is so profound for a parent that it pierces even the happiest and most remote circumstances. The idea of letting go is just acutely painful. I think that’s why holidays take on increased importance once you have kids. They provide constancy at a time when your kids are growing and changing so quickly you can scarcely keep up. They offer a way of rooting your children in the family and connecting to them to generations past and future. Most importantly, they mean you can guilt your kids into returning home at least once a year when you grow old. That’s a pretty fair trade for a prime parking spot and 6:00am trip to the EndUp.