What I like and don't like about Christmas (you're a mean one, Mr. Grinch (C)

Grandpa passing on the family secrets and the kids being introduced to this wonderous tradition. Thank you DAD!!!!

I admit that some people (my wife and kids) think I am the modern Grinch when it comes to Christmas. My likes and don't likes about Christmas probably explain this "grinchness" that some may see in me.

After my parents were divorced when I was 12, I admit that this time of year has been very uncomfortable for me. Things could be scarce. My dad was rarely around and struggling with his own personal demons, my mom and us kids were usually the charity case of the ward. So this time of year just seem to accentuate the deficiencies in my home growing up. Then something magic happened to me as a missionary.

In Nicaragua in 1993 (my first Christmas in the mission), I was training a new companion and he was struggling mightily. I knew he was terribly homesick, frustrated with the language, missing his personal possessions (video games, his toyota pickup, his "own room", and other things). Christmas in Nicaragua was so different than anything I had ever experienced up to that point. No trees, no presents, no smells, no snow, no typical songs, lots of liquor and general debauchery. The gospel became a little tougher to teach and I am sure our "down" spirits didn't help.

I was determined to break this bad funk and so I took some money that was sent to me by some dear friends and I asked Sister Rodriguez, with whom we lived, if she had ever made cake. She got up every morning of the week, save Sunday, and made bread by hand and then carried it up the hill, on big pans to a guy who had an oven. All morning long, on her head, she carried it to bake it and then sell it throughout the day.

I gave her all the money ($50 which was almost equal to the entire amount of money we lived on for an entire month) and she got the supplies. We made about 13 cakes of all weird sizes and shapes. Christmas morning after making cakes and frosting them, my companion and I went out all over town handing out pieces to people. I'll never forget as long as I live, walking down the poor barrios with naked kids playing in the sewer water running down the middle of the dirt streets and then just handing big pieces of cake out to the stunned victims. I remember walking down the street and looking back and seeing little kids just standing there stunned, holding this big piece of cake in their little dirty hands, not knowing what it was or what to do with it. It was awesome and I realized that in this poor country (second poorest on this hemisphere) that the things I associated with a "merry Christmas", were all just materialistic things and that this whole time of Christmas misery was because I thought about what I didn't have instead of what I could do to just blow someone else away with genuine surprise and giving. I repeated it the next year right before coming home. Still, hands down, the greatest Christmas of my life were in Nicaragua with people who had really no earthy possessions.

So, still to this day, I hate buying gifts and receiving bought gifts. It is like a personal insult to the sweet experience I had way back in the mountains of Nicaragua. I like genuine love and associated giving but I can't stand to see my kids fixated on "things" or going to a store because of the commercialization of Christmas. This is the first thing that makes me the grinch. I loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk in the Christmas devotional and I had thought the same things that hopefully this year with the economy on the skids that it would temper the materialistic -"things"-frenzy that has become Christmas.

So the second thing that makes me the grinch is that I for the most part don't like all the candy and sweets of Christmas (I don't care for candy anyways and my heart is on what I do like at Christmas).

So now you all know why I am the grinch.

Now let me tell you about what I absolutely love about Christmas:

1. Sitting in front of a fire with the lights down low,with the one(s) you love, drinking hot chocolate and just being mezmorized by the warmth and flickering of the flames

2. Tamales- my dad used to make tamales around this time of year and it is my first Christmas food love. I can't give my heart away to the cheap treats of Christmas when there is something so glorious and pure about tamales at Chrismas. The smell of that corn and red chilly cooking and steaming together.

3. Citrus- I love the grapefruit for breakfast, oranges and clementines all day. The smell, the taste, the wonder of the simple pure gift of citrus at this time of year. I call this "God's Christmas Candy" because it comes this wonderous time of year.

4. Eggnog. This wonderous drink so rich and creamy with its one of a kind taste and smell.

5. A new love is my wife's Family Christmas DVD which she originally made for me 3 years ago but I was so touched by it that we decided to give it as a christmas card and now we have given it for 3 years (including this year). It is a wonderful way to relive the year for me and to remember the blessings, fun and craziness of living in this family. This is the kind of gift that can't be bought and is like "Nicaragua Cake" to me.

6. Calling up and talking to old friends and distant family and renewing that connection of love and friendship.

I don't want clothes (I hardly wear 1/10 of what is in my closet). I don't want electronics (I don't love things). My dream is to have a Christmas with absolutely no purchased item and to just sit around and listen to Christmas music and give those things that can only be created by love and thoughtfulness and not by the power of filthy lucre..... Now you know Mr. C is the new grinch!