It’s that time again. Time for my wife, my son, and me to write our Christmas lists. Mine usually start as a note on my phone and I send it to her when I have a few things together. She started this when we got married. Every year we each write down a few things we might like, and the lists become the starting point for shopping, for each other and for everybody else.
I didn’t like it at first. My thinking was that if I really knew someone, I should be able to pick something out without a list. A list felt like admitting I didn’t.
That’s mostly true. But a Christmas list turned out to be a good place to learn about a person. People don’t put things on a list they don’t really want, and every so often I read one and get surprised. One year my son wanted cowboy boots. Didn’t have that on my radar.
You can know someone for years. You can live under the same roof. They liked something for a long time, so you keep giving them more of it, and they appreciate it, because you gave it with love. But they don’t feel known for who they are now. Just for who they used to be.
The people we love most change a little on us, and we don’t always notice. The list is one of the few places they get to tell us.
Mine has changed too. When I was younger I wanted movies and electronics. If it had an on switch, I wanted it. Now I have a drawer full of movies I haven’t watched in ages and a pile of gadgets nobody makes chargers for anymore.
These days the list looks different. New pictures of my wife and my son. Things to cook, and things to cook with. Dress shirts for work, which are boring and which I’ll wear every week. A movie or a gadget, I’d still enjoy. It’s just more who I was.
I don’t always buy what’s written on their lists. Sometimes I find something they didn’t think to ask for and like better. But I read every line.
This year mine says new socks.
