X-mas with the Teenage Grinches

Well, to be fair, the Grinch is really my 14 year old.  My younger one enjoys the Christmas spirit and likes to participate in it.  My 14 year old though, he doesn’t care for anything Christmas, including Christmas trees or Christmas lights.  According to him, buying a tree is a waste of money since you’re just going to throw it out in a month and the lights only run up the electricity bill and it’s all really just a competition between neighbors to prove who can put up the most lights.  Oh, and he hates Christmas carols or songs so to add to his misery this Christmas season, the only rock station in Miami suddenly transformed into an “easy listening” radio station and for the last three weeks has dedicated itself to playing Christmas music 24/7.

Now, I have to admit, Christmas in Miami is…..well, let’s just say that it doesn’t really feel or look like Christmas.  Christmas lights on palm trees, 70 degree plus weather, Santa jet-skiing, no snow, it just doesn’t work.  And of course that’s a problem for my son.  If it doesn’t look or feel like Christmas, then it ain’t Christmas. Nevertheless, we string up the lights, we buy the Christmas tree, I force him to decorate it with me (even if that means having to listen to Avenged Sevenfold) and I even torture him with Christmas music while driving in the car.

And it’s not even the fact that the Christmas tree isn’t surrounded by boxes and boxes of wrapped presents like it was when he was younger.  If you ask him what he wants for Christmas, he’ll tell you he wants something medieval or an antique to decorate  his room with, or even a book on ancient warriors or something.   Still, I can’t help to feel as though I have let my son down somehow in experiencing this whole tradition of Christmas thing.  It seems that perhaps he might be experiencing PTSD after we revealed to him that Santa wasn’t real and that we had lied to him all of his life.  After that, Christmas just didn’t quite have the same meaning for him.  And don’t bother giving him the whole “it’s about being with family and sharing with each other” speech because he’ll just tell you that it should be that way every day and why do we need a holiday to do that.

Logically, all of his arguments make sense, and are rational.  But there’s a big part of me that wishes there was a huge syringe I could fill with Christmas spirit and inject him with it.

As I reflected on my son’s Grinch mood, I was flipping through the notes on my Iphone deleting old to-do notes that I had already accomplished, when I came across one that my son left me last year.  It was his Christmas “wish list” written in third person:

1. Buy him a new guitar
2. Love him more than you do now
   

   He'll be sharing this Christmas gift with mommy!

3. Show him more affection
4. Apologize for not letting him go to the Underoath concert
5. Let him go to the A7X concert

Then I went and asked my 12 year old what was on his wishlist.  The only things he was asking for was the new World of Warcraft computer game, Axe deodorant, and Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

I have to say……I love the simplicity of my sons desires and how easy it is to please them. Love and Deodorant. How hard can that be? <3

Happy Holidays Everyone!

-Natasha Olivera

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