My gifts will be wrapped with hope

Like everyone else this time of year, I’ve got a list. I take it shopping when I look for the presents my children would like to unwrap on Christmas morning. On it are the usual things: gift cards to favorite stores, CDs and DVDs and whatever “of the moment” must-have item that was specifically requested.

I tuck the list into my purse to keep it handy, but I keep another in the back of my mind. I’ve decided that the things I’d really like my children to have aren’t presents I can put under the tree.

That’s how it works. They want iPods, but I want to give them the world.

If I could, as simple as it sounds, I’d make sure each of my children had the ability to get along with others. After all, that’s the basic building block for personal and professional success.

I don’t mean that I want my children to be pushovers, easy targets for anyone who would bully them or pressure them into giving way, but I do want them to learn how to get along with the people around them. And that’s not always easy to do. There are times when it’s hard – so very hard – not to match someone insult for insult, shout for shout, hurt for hurt. It’s not always easy to remember that if you can get along, keeping your dignity while you keep your peace, standing up for yourself while you willingly sacrifice a few battles as you go, you’ll win the bigger war.

I wish I could give my children self-confidence and self-doubt all wrapped up in one neat package. It’s an important combination because one checks, and at times, cancels the other. For the rest of their lives they’ll need the confidence to take chances and the occasional leap of faith. But they’ll need enough doubt to make them cautious, to think before they speak and look before they step.

I’d especially like to give them all the increasingly rare gift of curiosity; the ability to be curious about the world and the people around us even when there is no obvious connection; to notice what isn’t always easy to see and be open to the smallest details. The world is a banquet of sights and sounds and sensations. What a shame to miss any of it.

I want my children to learn to accept responsibility for their actions. To understand that what we do not only affects us, but like a stone dropped into a puddle, spreads away from us as well. When we hurt ourselves, we hurt those who love us. When we hurt our loved ones, we hurt ourselves.

And, because it’s my fantasy list and I can put down whatever I want, I wish I could give each child the gift of true happiness. I would wish for each of them 100 years filled with delight in everything they do; in relationships, at work and in the life they claim. Not fairytale happiness, where nothing ever tarnishes what we see in the mirror, but the kind of contentment that comes from understanding how life would be if we weren’t loved and didn’t love. That’s the kind of happiness you have to fight for, and the kind that ultimately means the most.

My children will wake up on Christmas morning and they’ll rip into wrapping paper and tear open paper boxes. They’ll find new clothes, high-tech gadgets and most of the things that were on their lists. They won’t see the wishes that fly out of each package and fill the air around us. But I will.

Because I will have tucked a few into every gift.