Roundabout: A "Little Women" Christmas

Is “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott a Christmas story? At our house it is. In “Little Women,” one of the Christmases described tells about the four young sisters trimming the house in red bows and evergreens, gathering around the piano, singing hymns as one sister plays, sharing good cheer with the neighbors … whatever else happens in the story, that scene is central. A warm, cozy house and an old-fashioned Christmas with all the festive details; the whole family gathered together. A girlish dream.

We have our own version of this, simple but full of traditions. Each of the girls has at least one Christmas song that they can play on the piano, and we often gather around the TV to watch Christmas DVDs. We do a lot of holiday baking. Each girl likes to take part in making at least one special kind of cookie. The result is a lot of cookies, as our friends and neighbors will testify. I don’t know if boys like to do these things. The only boy in our house is 5, and his only urge to cook involves carrots and a cheese grater. I have no idea why.

Is Christmas much different spent with girls than with boys? Dirk and I have always said that while certainly, boys and girls are different, our girls are all so different from each other that you can’t make general statements about one gender or the other. However …

Now that we’ve had our fifth child and only boy for awhile, I can safely say there seem to be two rules that mostly apply to our Christmas experience with girls.

First, boy presents often require Space to Set Up, or Room to Use It. Girl presents usually do not, and girls, in fact, tend to keep their toys separate, immediately creating a temporary hoarding spot. When presents are all opened, the items are quietly inventoried, examined and placed carefully into a cardboard box. The contents of that box are then occasionally perused from its spot in the living room, until eventually the girl remembers these new items are Hers to Do With What She Wants, and she transfers them to her room, where she gets to know them better.

The second rule is that girl presents don’t usually require as many batteries as boys.

I recently read a list online of sure-fire favorite gifts for girls. The list said that dolls are popular with girls of any age. Uh, no. Jenna was always bored by dolls, and just the other day I found a note written by Megan that said: “The doll is alive … it comes to life ... at night … it’s scary.” No dolls for Megan.

Another gift idea on that list was crafts. Girls, apparently, all love crafts. Well, probably mine all do, but as they have a craft-challenged mother, they frequently look at crafts with frustration. They have kits for scrapbooks, quilting, crochet, and braided friendship bracelets, which they make a valiant effort to learn on their own, but frequently say, “Mom, could you help me with this?” And really, I can’t.

New clothes for Christmas are welcomed by two of our girls. They love to try things on. Last year when I suggested this to Jacob, he looked at me like I was out of my mind. Try on clothes, when there are toys to play with? Isn’t Christmas supposed to be fun??

Other ideas on the gift list would have interested some of our girls, but there wasn’t one thing that would have appealed to everyone. I can think of one gift, though, that all of our girls have requested at some point. Remember Lucy in “A Charlie Brown Christmas?” Lucy knew what gift she wanted, and it wasn’t dolls or crafts: “Real estate!”

Our girls have often requested real estate in the form of a tree house. This tree house, if I have it right, should be at least three stories tall, with an attic and a basement, a real kitchen and bathroom, maybe a flat-screen TV. The ultimate in playing house.

When I have explained a tree house bigger than our regular house may be more than Mom and Dad can do, I am always told with a self-assured look that Santa will take care of everything. And, because Santa is not in the real estate business, Christmas morning is always short one very large expectation. We do, however, have several dollhouses, which just barely qualify as real estate. Actually, the only gifts I give that really please all my kids are books. We already have “Little Women” so maybe for this year “Little Men”…

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