When Alex and Rachel were still practically babies, Char and I decided to head off potential child-oriented holiday greed by limiting how many gifts they would receive from us. We explained to them each year that the baby Jesus received gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, so we would give each of them three gifts. Because it was all they knew, they accepted it without challenge.

Granted, Santa always brought a couple of presents, and there was no curbing the grandparents, but there was also no petitioning the grandparents for specific things. The lesson we hoped to drill home with them was gratitude for what you get and graciousness if it frankly sucked.

Living out in the sticks helped. By the time the kids were back in school after Christmas break (nothing PC here; they're in a parochial school, and it's definitely Chistmas break) and with such an extended break from friends there wasn't a lot of comparing holiday loot.

This year, the kids and their friends are talking. The concensus from their friends seemed to be that our kids are royally ripped off; the concensus with our kids is that their friends are somewhat spoiled and have expectations that are unrealistically high.

This is a good thing, I think, as long as they keep a condescending attitude out of it. They're all old enough to understand our logic (and we have explained why we settled on what we did) and they're all old enough to get as big a thrill out of giving as they are getting.

And now that they all understand Santa, they also understand we were never as rigid in the three gifts rule as they supposed. Still, they are not expecting anything more than three gifts each this year, but "if Santa wants to fill our stockings, that's cool."

The traditions we started 14 years ago have begun to fade already; Santa aside, even more than last year the kids are missing my dad right now. They don't miss his gift-giving generosity; they miss what little shit he could be. My dad never gave them gifts outright; he gave them hints and sent them on a wild hunt around the house--sometimes two houses--to find what he was giving them. They miss his nearly-evil laughter and how much fun he had tormenting them.

Truth be told, I miss it, too.

I wasn't done learning from him.

Even so, as much as we miss him, we're all looking forward to this Christmas. The house is going to be overflowing with family, and it hasn't escaped any of us that this year had the potential to be worse than last; the kids are determined to celebrate the fact that their mother is still here, and that she's now about 85% healed up.

While I will miss my dad's manical laughter, he would kick my ass if I didn't embrace this Christmas as something special.

Now if only my wife would give me a farking hint what she wants this year. Besides me.