Dylan Stafford

We’re travelling for sixteen days for Christmas. We are leaving California for Texas, Rhode Island and New Jersey. Jackson is 32 months old and he weighs 36 pounds. He has a ten minute attention span, max. This is either a great idea or we are slightly crazy.
 
Marisa booked the tickets back in the summer. My wife would have been a great travel agent. Anticipating Christmas as an adult sometimes means creating something to get excited about. I have been looking forward to the trip since then. For kids, the excitement is all built into the process. Jack and I have been playing the “look for the Christmas lights” game for the last several weeks on our way home in the evening. He’s seen Santa at least two times. And yes, we do actually go to church now and again. They seem to talk about Christmas there too.

Jack will get to see family. As we drive home we go through the names of all the family we will see. People and pets are all in one category to Jack.

“Are we going to see Grandma and Grandpa in Texas?” I ask.

“Yes. And Dottie Girl and Boogie and Butterscotch and Gigi.” Jack replies. These are names of all the dogs in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex associated with either my parents or my brother and sister. They are just like people to Jack.

I am looking forward family babysitting. Our problem living in Los Angeles is that we don’t have any of that easy support from having family close by. We have great friends and neighbors who help us care for Jack but nothing beats grandmas and aunties and cousins. For the two weeks of Christmas we will get to have some of the most appreciative babysitters imaginable. The alternative, staying home in LA and entertaining Jack for two weeks, is more than I can imagine. I am usually worn out after a regular, two day weekend with him. I love him–and he wears me out.

A few weekends ago I was in a grumpy mood. Marisa asked what was wrong and I said I was tired from babysitting all weekend. She looked at me and said, “Dylan, it isn’t babysitting. It is parenting.” She was right and I knew it but it didn’t make me feel less grumpy. I have thought about it several times since then and it has actually made it easier to parent. Somehow “parenting” seems more valuable and worthwhile than “babysitting”.

We landed in Dallas where mom and my brother picked us up at Love Field. It is the smaller airport and is almost old-fashioned compared to the bigger DFW. Texas is the first leg of the trip.

My mom was born very close to Christmas and usually it is a bum deal because you get combo-gifts that are supposed to cover both events. This year for a change it worked to her favor. If it weren’t for Christmas, we wouldn’t be with her for her birthday.

Two weeks ago I got a voice message on my cell phone from my mom. It was actually half a message. She started off chipper but half way through the message she choked up. I asked her later what had happened to make her hang up. She said she was just happy that we were coming to visit and that it had hit her unexpectedly while she was trying to leave a voicemail. She said little children are really what Christmas is all about and she was grateful that she would be seeing Jack this year.

My mom retired from teaching years ago and then became a full-time church lady, serving on committees and giving her time. On Sunday we went to the early service in the new hall at her church. The hall is a round, modern space and everyone is proud of what it adds to the church community. It is open and airy with big windows that look out across the Trinity River. I watched birds flit in the nude branches of the dormant trees during the service. I liked the combination of nature and worship. I knew it would make my mom happy to show us the new hall and also show off her grandson.

I also liked hearing some Christmas music in church, not just in supermarkets and on the radio. When I was growing up as a preacher’s kid, I heard a full Advent season’s worth of Christmas music every year. It was an important part of the buildup to Christmas. The five Advent candles slowly counted down and the season seemed to take much more than a month. As an adult, it seems to take about twenty minutes between Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas morning.

The 9:00am church service was almost full and we sat on the back row surrounded by a big extended African family. I think they are refugees adopted by the church congregation. Jack made friends after the service with a little boy named Alex. We wriggled out of our coats and Jack got comfortable on Marisa’s lap.

We stood for the first hymn and at the end of the row in front of us I saw a tall, red-headed teenager with braces on his teeth. I saw in him a future-version of our own red-headed son Jackson and my eyes filled with tears. It was like I had multiple thoughts all at the same time: Jack will grow up; his childhood will end; he will be a teenager; he will become a man someday; I will be much older then than now; my parents will change; I will miss these days when he is little. The thoughts weren’t one after another but more like one on top of another, and therefore amplified and stronger.

Marisa looked at me crying. She knows I cry sometimes and it was quiet in church so she couldn’t ask what was going on. She squeezed my hand and smiled.

My whole Christmas happened right then. All the Hallmark moments I am always hoping for, all those warm feelings that I see people have in the movies, all those were present for me in that moment. We have two weeks together and there will be all the laughter and drama of travelling and family but the best of it was distilled right then. I was seeing my toddler and my future teenager and my own old age all at the same time. I was sitting in a church with my mom and dad on one side and my wife and son on the other and it was a perfect Christmas moment.