Have you seen the commercial where the young handsome husband gives his beautiful, young, very skinny, very healthy looking wife a $2,000 stationary bike for Christmas? She is thrilled to get into better shape for her beloved husband and child so that she is able to survive for many more Christmases and to keep looking attractive and slim for him as she inevitably ages. I think this wife might want to visit her husband’s office to see exactly what his new secretary looks like. How much do you want to bet that the secretary is working out after 6 PM at the office gym on a stationary bike? I think that is where the husband got the idea of buying his wife a stationary bike for Christmas. Just saying… Personally, I am not sure that marriage is going to last through the ages but you never know, do you? A car, a vacation, or a nice piece of jewelry sounds like a better idea to me. Imagine a wife buying her husband an electric shaver when he has had a beard for many years. Are you hinting at something?
In my 20’s I had been dating a man for more than two years. We were in a serious committed relationship. What did he give me for Christmas? He bought me one brass candle holder that needed to be attached to the wall. I was dumbfounded. Even if he had bought two, well at least I could have put one brass candle holder on either side of the couch with some paintings in-between, but just one brass wall mounted candle holder? Why?
We had known each other intimately for over two years and that is what he decided to buy me out of everything in the world that he could have bought me for Christmas? Now if my friend or relative had overheard me talking about a brass candle holder that I had always wanted, then, I would have been thrilled to get this as a gift. Needless to say, I had never mentioned that to anyone. This relationship didn’t last.
My younger sister had been dating her boyfriend since high school and they were a happy loving couple. They had both graduated from college and they both had good jobs. They were very much a couple and serious about each other. My sister was very excited about the start of the Christmas season that year as she totally expected to get an engagement ring and a proposal on Christmas day. The big day at last arrived and she could hardly wait for her boyfriend of seven years to arrive at the door. (I am sure you have guessed by now.) She opened her package. It was a medium-sized black purse. She frantically searched through the purse looking for the small black box that would be holding her engagement ring. There wasn’t a ring in the purse… the purse was a purse and it wasn’t leather. That was the end of that relationship. A year and a half later she married a wonderful, handsome man who gave her an engagement ring for Christmas.
It isn’t the price of the gift that makes a gift important it is the thought that there is some feeling behind the gift that makes it important. All people really want for Christmas is to know that they are important to you. It is just knowing that you care about them and what you think about them and that you listen to their likes and dislikes. That is what makes a gift important.
There is something that I have to admit to you about this season. Christmas makes me cry. Yep, I cry at everything. Old movies that I have seen maybe 200 times still make me sob. I mean when Jimmy Stewart’s brother holds up his glass and makes a toast to Jimmy, “To my brother, the richest man in town.” Donna Reed is hugging him and he is holding Susie, his daughter, and his son is playing the piano and all of the friends and neighbors who he has helped throughout his life donated money to help him out are smiling and singing and they all toast him together, “To the richest man in town!” How can you watch that scene even for the 201’st time and not cry? I do. I cry.
I cry at the television commercial where the son is coming home from college and his little sister is up early but his parents are still sleeping and he makes himself a hot heaping cup of delicious Folgers Coffee. How about when Judy Garland sings, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to Margaret O’Brien and she sings “Someday soon we all will be together if the fates allow. Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.”? I can’t help it I cry. The thing is, the fates don’t allow that we will always be together. The fates can’t be trusted.
So how do we keep enjoying the magic of the season when you are 60 plus?
The past is over and we are still here. We have to make the best of the present and the future, but if you have lived to 60 and over we know that nothing is certain and life can be hard. Sometimes life can be very, very hard. Senior citizens know that life isn’t always a breeze. The best way to enjoy Christmas is to just live in the present, the Christmas of this year and to give the gift of caring to all of your friends and family. Thank you for reading my blog and thank you for your friendship. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Until Next Week…
Is There Sex After 60? (Navigating Single Life After 60) 