Secretly, I have many things I want for Christmas

It’s hard to get used to how things have changed.

Now, instead of presenting me with homemade gifts, usually a school picture framed in Elmer’s glue and glitter, or a construction paper and Popsicle stick craft, my older children ask me what I would like for Christmas.

I don’t know how to tell them what I really want, so I make jokes.

I’d like just once, I say, to not have someone inexplicably open a closet, look under a bed or in the trunk of the car and stumble into my secret stash. (I’m still mad about the year my son stood at the bottom of the stairs and, peering up into the attic, bellowed, “When did we get a remote control Barbie car and an Easy Bake oven?”)

I’d like my children to stick with their favorite pastime or hobby – the one for which they requested Santa bring them equipment that costs hundreds of dollars – long enough to get things wrapped and under the tree.( Bringing mama a new list on December 23rd makes her take the eggnog into the coat closet and close the door behind her.)

I’d like a house that cleans and decorates itself, a refrigerator that restocks itself and a family that feeds itself. I’d like to know what smells funny in the laundry room, and what drives perfectly healthy cats and dogs to throw up on the tree skirt.

I’d like to know how a man who still has every post-it note and cancelled check he’s ever written can lose the big box of outdoor Christmas lights that mysteriously disappeared from the garage. And why he won’t admit they’re lost and just go out and get some more.

And, when the time comes to undress the drooping Christmas tree – by that I mean take the ornaments off, the tree has already dropped every needle – I’d like someone, anyone else in the family to be within a three-county radius and willing to help.

They listen to my monologue, roll their eyes and ask for the keys.

I hide behind the words because I don’t know how to tell them that all I really want for Christmas is the very thing they are so anxious to leave behind, their childhood.

I still want Christmas mornings surrounded by children who look up at me with bright shining eyes as they bring me simple gifts that were made with love; little tokens that are tucked in the branches of the tree every year after.

My teenagers, old enough to drive to the mall and shop for a gift, are too young to know that sometimes it’s the least you have to offer that means the most.

I don’t know, maybe it’s better that no one else is around when, wearing my plush new slippers and expensive perfume, and listening to my new CD, all gifts that I’ll cherish, I pull each crumpled aluminum foil star and chubby little handprint off the tree and put them away for another year.

I don’t want anyone to see me cry.