On growing children, changing traditions, and the little endings we never see coming.
Amazon’s holiday gift book has been lying on our booth table for two days.
Two. Whole. Days.
Nobody has touched it. Not one of my three children has shown even the slightest interest in flipping through its glossy pages. Meanwhile, I’ve picked it up several times, mostly to see what I might need for Christmas.
Apparently, I’m the target demographic now. It’s the nostalgia.
There was a time when that catalog would have caused an actual territorial dispute in our house. Someone would have grabbed it first. Someone else would have demanded a turn. A third would have reminded everyone that they didn’t get to look at it first last year, which was apparently an injustice worth revisiting.
Eventually, there would have been some sort of custody arrangement involving a timer, a considerable amount of whining, and my repeated suggestion that perhaps we could all just share.
The pages would have been folded, dog-eared, and covered in circles. Toys with impossibly long names. Things that required seventeen batteries. Things that looked suspiciously similar to the toys already scattered across our living room floor.
Each child would have identified approximately 147 things they absolutely, positively needed for Christmas.
And I would have loved every ridiculous minute of it.
Well, most of them.
When the Catalog Was Everything
Christmas with three little kids was a production.
There were lists and letters and elaborate discussions about what Santa might bring. The toy catalogs were practically sacred documents, consulted frequently and handled with the seriousness of a congressional budget hearing.
The kids would study those pages as if their futures depended on them. They’d circle their favorites, change their minds, circle something else, and occasionally announce that they’d found the one thing they wanted more than anything in the entire world.
Until they turned the page.
I remember the excitement of those years. The anticipation. The way Christmas magic seemed to live in every little corner of our house.
There were toys to assemble, gifts to hide, stockings to fill, and an unreasonable number of tiny plastic pieces to keep track of. Christmas morning was a blur of wrapping paper, squeals of excitement, discarded instructions, and at least one desperate search for batteries.
I was tired. The house was a disaster. Someone inevitably needed help opening something while I was already helping someone else.
And it was wonderful.
Not because every moment was perfect, but because those moments belonged to a particular season of our lives.
A season I didn’t realize was already slipping away.
Somewhere Along the Way
Jase, Henley, and Sadie are thirteen now.
Thirteen!
I’m not entirely sure how that happened, considering I’m fairly certain I was just pushing a stroller large enough to require its own parking permit.
But here we are.
Their Christmas lists look different these days. Toys have been replaced by clothes, shoes, electronics, gift cards, and things that cost considerably more while taking up considerably less space under the tree.
They have opinions about brands and styles. They know what they like. They have become people with their own tastes, interests, and ideas about the world.
And I genuinely love this part.
I love the conversations we have now. Their humor. Their independence. The glimpses of the adults they’ll someday become.
There’s something extraordinary about watching the children you raised begin to become themselves.
I wouldn’t trade this season for the one before it.
But I do wish I could visit that earlier Christmas for an afternoon.
Just long enough to hear them arguing over the catalog again.
The Last Times We Never Notice
Here’s what gets me.
I don’t remember the last time they fought over a Christmas catalog.
I couldn’t tell you which year it happened or who got to look at it first. There’s no photograph of the occasion. No entry in a baby book. No little keepsake tucked away in a drawer.
Because at the time, it was just another ordinary afternoon.
Another catalog. Another disagreement. Another moment in a house full of little children who needed me for practically everything.
I had no reason to believe it was anything worth remembering.
That’s the peculiar heartbreak of parenting.
We celebrate the firsts with such enthusiasm. First steps. First words. First days of school. First lost teeth. We take pictures and write down dates and tell everyone who will listen.
But the lasts?
They tend to leave quietly.
The last time you carry a sleepy child from the car. The last time someone asks you to read one more bedtime story. The last time a little hand reaches for yours without thinking.
The last time three children fight over who gets the Christmas catalog first.
There is rarely any ceremony. No announcement. Nothing to tell you that an ordinary moment is about to become a memory.
Life simply moves along, and one day you notice something missing.
Making Room for a Different Kind of Magic
I don’t want to spend these years wishing my children were little again.
They’re growing, and that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do.
Besides, this version of Christmas has its own magic. The familiar traditions mean something different now. The conversations last longer. The jokes are funnier. We get to enjoy things together that weren’t possible when everyone needed a nap by two o’clock.
There are still memories to make, surprises to plan, and traditions to carry forward.
The magic hasn’t disappeared.
It’s simply grown up a little, right along with them.
Still, I think there’s room to love what’s here and miss what was.
To be grateful for three healthy, growing teenagers while occasionally wishing for one more afternoon with three little kids and a well-worn toy catalog.
Maybe that’s part of motherhood. Learning to hold joy and sadness together, without asking either one to leave.
Just Sitting There
The Amazon holiday gift book is still on our booth table.
Its pages are perfectly smooth. No folded corners. No circles. No elaborate negotiations about whose turn comes next.
I could probably throw it away, and nobody would even notice.
Except me.
Because every time I walk past that untouched catalog, I see the children who used to fight over it. I remember the excitement, the noise, and the beautifully ridiculous business of raising three little people at once.
And I see the three teenagers who live here now, becoming more themselves every day.
I love them exactly as they are.
I miss who they used to be.
Both things are true.
I suppose that’s the deal we make when we become parents. We get the extraordinary privilege of watching our children grow up, knowing that every new beginning means saying goodbye to something that came before.
And if we’re lucky, our hearts break just a little along the way.
All because of a Christmas catalog nobody wants to look at anymore.
