Mary Ann Fitzmorris FAMILY TIES

My daughter returned from a friend’s house the other day and told me about the Christmas tree there. “Mom,” she said, “You wouldn’t believe all the presents they have under their tree!” She walked over to our tree. “We need more presents under our tree. Everybody else has tons of presents under their tree. We need more.”

She’s right. To make it look like Christmas in America, we need wrapped boxes two feet deep under the tree. We used to go to a party where the tree took up a third of a gigantic living room, and a wall of presents was three feet from that. Those people definitely did their share to stimulate the economy.

It’ a good thing retailers aren’t depending on my Christmas spirit. There is a point, and it’s not far from where I start, that my Christmas fever gets replaced with a revulsion of the excess that has consumed this holiday.

That may be because my husband and I grew up in homes that couldn’t afford to keep up with the American version of Christmas. And we’ve kept it that way here.

Under our tree right now is a Nativity where the players in the drama are xeroxed cut-outs that each of my children made in kindergarten. We have lost enough of each set to have only one Nativity.

I can tell whose is whose by the coloring styles. My son never cared much for coloring. His people are solid scribbled purple. My daughter’s are beautifully colored, as only a girl can.

To our amazement, we’ve only had to rescue one of these figures from the Demon Pup.

Our Nativity set shares the underside of the tree with pine cones collected from the yard that have been sprayed silver. My daughter has often said that Christmas, for me, comes in an aerosol can.

Besides the pine cones and Nativity, the tree bottom is pretty bare. That and the school-made ornaments on the tree could make a visitor think that we have not been sucked into the commercialism that is Christmas.

Not so. We understand the true meaning of the American Christmas. I can tell by our American Express bill in January.

It’s just not displayed under the tree. Most of the gifts in this house are generously provided by Santa. He has been so good to our children that we hardly have to buy anything for them.

We still get one or two things for each kid. These would normally be under our tree, except that it was hard to keep them wrapped when the kids were little. Self-control is in short supply at this house. I didn’t want to spend the Christmas season fighting with the kids to leave their presents alone, so we just kept them hidden until the Big Day.

This year I was going to try putting presents under the tree. The children are old enough to control themselves. But there is no need for it. Those presents that would have been under the tree are already on their bodies. The tree underside remains bare.

My favorite joke this season has been that the kids would keep each other company by twiddling thumbs Christmas morning, since most of what we bought them was worn right out of the store.

The kids and I love shopping at Christmas. Looking at the displays and the decorations would satisfy me, but not my daughter.

As I watched her try on things, I’d make a mental note to come back and get it for her for a Christmas gift. The trick was to get her to leave it in the store. That rarely worked, so all my daughter’s Christmas gifts are now used merchandise.

My son is at the stage where everything he wanted had a letter attached to it, like SR30, and huge numbers on the price tag. He was lucky Santa brought him one gift.

A friend and I had a recent discussion about Christmas, and how it all seems to be about gifts now. “But the whole tradition of gift-giving came about because the Wise Men brought gifts to the Baby Jesus,” she said.

Now that I know the true meaning of Christmas, I’m going to go out and buy some more.