Merry Christmas Advent…ure (December 18)

Guys! I’m eating junk and watching rubbish. You better come out and stop me!
Kevin McCallister

Stuff. Stuff, and more Stuff.

Christmas (for the very, very lucky) can feel like you turned your house into an Amazon warehouse. In no way shape or form is this a complaint. Gift-giving in its purest form is one hundred percent discretionary. Setting aside the “consumer sentiment” CNBC side of Christmas shopping, it is amazing to have people to shop for, and who might be shopping for you.

But oh lord the stuff.

I mean two-thousand plus years ago I feel like there was an incredibly appreciative dad who was thinking to himself: “Where am I going to put all this myrrh”?

Songs 35 and 36 are about the shift my family made to “experience gifts” and how we are never looking back

O Tannenbaum (Vince Guaraldi Trio Version)

This song had to be on the list. Not expressly about the experience gift-giving theme mentioned above but who doesn’t see that gangly, orphan tree that Charlie Brown carries to his friends. And how they turn it into exactly what it needed to be.

Also, I just love that when this is on Chloe yells “CHARLIE BROWN”!

Mom Returns and Finale – Instrumental -John Williams (Home Alone)

A few years back my wonderful cousin/ “big sis” had a wonderful idea.

What if we did stuff instead of buying stuff?

Flash forward to a surprise snowy March day in 2018. At the Amtrack station in Kirkwood using the wonderful gift cards Aunt Jo had given to all of us. Kate is wide-eyed and excited, just like Dad and Mom to get on the train.

As we boarded Kate saw the man taking our tickets and said to me “Dad! It’s just like Polar Express”!

As we settled in for our day trip journey, that same gentleman stopped by our seats. He asked for Kate’s ticket and asked me what her name was as she was too shy to answer. He had the most imperceivable smile as he very professionally punched her name into the ticket.

I will never forget the look on her face when he handed this back to her. Never.

This train trip was the seed for what has been many years of our group making sure to add memories together aside from what comes in boxes and paper.

Garden Glow at the Botanical Garden. Rudolph at the Fox, Home Alone at the St. Louis Symphony. (We looked at Christmas Cirque du Soleil but none of us had won the lottery sooo…)

The Home Alone show was incredible. ThisDad had not watched this movie in well over a decade. Was never on the holiday season must-watch list. But getting to the symphony. Walking Kate down they see the orchestra tuning up before the show. Watching the conductor walk out, lift his baton, and every player snap to performance ready was just awesome. It had been so long since I watched the movie I sort of forgot the John-Hughes-style side plot with the older neighbor.

The neighbor’s (SPOILER ALERT) family reunion at the end with the live music was incredible.

Thankfully they did not add any 3D bowling ball drops to the show.

I won’t ever watch Home Alone without thinking: Kevin’s parents learned absolutely nothing and left him AGAIN in the second movie!

But also, setting aside the McCallister family’s much-needed child-care court intervention, this movie will always be a reminder of how moving from stuff-focused giving to memory-focused giving has made the last many Christmas seasons all the more special.

So this tune from that movie makes the list at song 36.