We never stop teaching our kids

I've never been very good at Christmas. It comes with so much expectation, so much perfection baked in: Is the house decorated like a magazine? Can I afford everyone's wishlists? Will it be peaceful and relaxed or harried and fall short? I found myself too often stretched too thin to enjoy it, and quietly worried I hadn't given my kids storybook memories. I suppose this is the natural fallout from being a tiny part of a huge family that celebrates Christmas in a big way. One sister has a tree taller than any ceiling in my house and sometimes has a professional decorator tackle it. Another decorates every room of her Civil War-era house with handmade ornaments and a life-size sleigh on the front porch. Others go out to the tree farm and take professional pics with the family dog. We're not those kind of people. A small artificial tree with mismatched ornaments — or even hand-strung popcorn and mandarins studded with cloves — suits us just fine. We don't make homemade cookies around here, making our peace with pre-formed sugar cookies we pop out of a cardboard sleeve before tossing in the oven. That's not to say we don't have our own traditions. Almost 20 years ago, a kindly white-haired gentleman in a Columbus thrift shop presented my son, then a toddler, with an antique dome radio. He told us he often played Santa Claus at nursing homes and elementary schools, and he wanted to give us a gift, and then he bowed, winked, and left us with good wishes. To this day, we settle in with a hot toddy by the fireplace and listen to the Dickens classic "A Christmas Carol" on that radio, which sometimes picks up Canadian stations. We observe the solstice around the bonfire, drinking mulled cider out of pewter flagons. But we largely avoided the parade of cheesy Christmas Hallmark movies, watching only a few sacred classics every year — "A Charlie Brown Christmas", "Elf", and "It's a Wonderful Life", which never fails to make me cry. Last year I took a different tack. I'd lost my mother in the spring, one of a few significant losses; any and all distractions were welcome. I found myself taking the long drive home, every time, looking for Christmas lights. I watched the movies, all the movies. I went to every holiday tree lighting, city celebration, every holiday thing I knew about — anything to keep us from thinking of all those we were missing. It was an imperfect patch job, but it carried me through. I was grateful but glad to put the season behind me. Bless George Bailey, I thought to myself on my smallest day, but how hard is it to count his blessings when the whole town turns out to come to his aid? As we head into the Christmas season this year, I began to feel the same old apprehension. I feel the weight of the past year, of the unexpected challenges our family has faced, the loss of relationships we didn't see coming. And I know that we are not alone. These are uncertain days in America, with isolation and division on the rise and fear and rage our twin pillars. But in the midst of it, I still have my youngest child at home. It's been years since that sweet little pig-tailed girl was making my Christmas gifts in art class and sneaking them home to proudly place under the tree, but her enthusiasm hasn't changed one bit. My days with her, a high schooler, under my roof are numbered and precious. We parents can do our best to keep the bigger world from breaching our homes as best we can, but our kids don't live under rocks. We think we insulate them, don't we, but they're wiser than we know. The week of Thanksgiving she was with me at the funeral of my childhood friend. I noticed she stayed closer than usual in the days following. "What would I do without you?" she has said, more than once. I assured her, with the confidence borne of nothing but a mom's desire to lay her worries to rest, that I was going nowhere. For a minute she's not the young woman studying to be a federal law enforcement officer; she's that big-eyed baby girl telling me I'm the best mom in the world. "Well how many moms do you know, anyway?" I say, deflecting. I keep my comments light, thinking of how many times I wished I could've done more for her and her brother. "A lot. I know a lot," she says, and starts to list them. "And you teach love for everybody. You don't make fun of other people because of their race. You don't teach hate for anybody because they're different or don't think the same or act the same or have less money. You teach love." For a moment I could not see past my own tears. Something shifted in me that day. Every Christmas I worried: Is it enough? Every day, every year, of their childhoods I asked myself: Did I give my kids enough? She wasn't watching what I bought her; she was watching what I taught her. And that has made all the difference. Contact Chronicle-Telegram columnist Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.