I hate using superlatives. They are too absolute. There must always be something better. Yet this Christmas seemed like a superlative Christmas to me.

Perhaps some of it comes from the back drop. I remember studying aesthetics and learning the importance of the background, the negative space, the contrast against which the picture appears. To a certain extent, that is why the advent reflection about putting Herod back in Christmas was so appealing to me. In a wonderful world, it is too easy to lose sight of what is special around us.

This year has been a great year, but a hard year for me. I put an incredible amount of energy into Howard Dean’s campaign, and then into Kim’s campaign and John Kerry’s campaign. I have never worked so hard on campaigns before, and none of the people I worked for got elected. However, I have been upbeat about this. At least Kim and Howard have made important contributions to the democratic process and I am glad to have worked on their campaigns.

I have also spent time working with various not-for-profit groups to promote the use of internet based technology for advocacy work. I’ll write more about this in a different post. Unfortunately, none of this has produced any cash, and the savings account is dwindling.

Because of this, we decided to have a very low key Christmas. Kim and I decided we would get each other one small and hopefully meaningful present. Most of the presents we would give to family and friends would be homemade.

For me, the birthdays and Christmases of my path have been filled with disappointment. I always expected to get something special. I never knew quite what it was, but it would be something magical that would bring me great joy. The magical gift never seemed to materialize and another Christmas would pass with new ties and socks.

This year was going to be different. This year, I would get socks, and I would appreciate them since my socks are getting a bit ratty. I wasn’t expecting much more than that.

To add to this lowered expectations, two days before Christmas is my father-in-law’s birthday. Kim’s brother and his family normally come down and we have an extended family birthday party and Christmas celebration. This year, however, everyone in Greg’s family was fighting the stomach flu and they had to postpone their trip. On top of that, we received a phone call that Kim’s great aunt had just died. In my family, I probably wouldn’t have known if a great aunt had died. I have no recollections of having ever met any of my great aunts. But in Kim’s family, Auntie Anna held a special place. Kim was very close to Auntie Anna and I probably knew Auntie Anna better then I knew many of the more immediate members of my own family.

So, with sickness, death and weak finances setting the backdrop, we headed into the Christmas season. Christmas Eve was spent at my father-in-law’s house. Kim’s mother had died of cancer five years ago, and her father had remarried. Christmas Eve was centered around her stepmother’s family, whom have also been very close. Fiona is lucky to have such wonderful Great Grandparents that she gets to see fairly often.

As we ate our holiday cookies and drank our eggnog, someone asked Fiona if she knew who was coming that evening. With great hope and anticipation in her voice, she asked, “Howard Dean?” There were chuckles and someone told Fiona, “No, Santa!” By her reaction, I think she might have rather seen Howard Dean.

After the festivities at the in-law’s house, we headed home. As holiday traditions go, all of the children opened one present on Christmas Eve. Surprisingly enough, they all got new pajamas to sleep in that would look great for the holiday pictures around the Christmas tree the next morning.

Christmas day came, and we expected to be woken up by the children. My two older daughters are getting to the age where they stay up late and get up late, so they didn’t wake us up. Fiona was exhausted by the night before and slept late, so Kim and I were the first ones up.

When Fiona awoke, she saw a castle sitting on the trampoline. Yes, for those of you who haven’t been to Orient Lodge, we have a trampoline in our living room. It is a small trampoline, good for children to jump on. Kim had set up a castle that Fiona could play in on the trampoline. Fiona jumped inside the castle for quite a while.

We opened presents and it was here that we found some more of the Christmas joy that I had so often missed. When Kim and I got married four years ago, we never ended up getting our wedding pictures. Kim spoke with the photographer, and we got the pictures about a month before Christmas. She was planning to put them into an album and give that as a present to me. However, I didn’t know that, and she was out when they arrived. I opened them and set them aside, with the same idea in mind. I called up the photographer, who is good friend of ours. I explained what I had in mind and asked if Kim knew the pictures had been sent. He said she did and that I should talk with her about what I had been thinking about. When I spoke with Kim I discovered we had been thinking the same thing.

I ended up wrapping the pictures and giving them to Kim and myself. On the card, I wrote To: Kim and Aldon From: The Magi. When Kim opened the present, she asked if it was a comb.

The big present that I got Kim was the Gourmet Magazine Cookbook. Kim was very pleased with that. Miranda got a laser show, which she played with much of the day, as well as a great game called Settlers of Catan, which we played a brief game of in the afternoon.

Kim and I had another magi-moment, when we both got each other the same book. It was Lakoff’s ‘don’t think of an elephant!’. We opened the presents at the same time. Years ago, Kim and I got each other the same card for one holiday. It was good to see that we were still on the same wavelength.

For me, the big present was a smoking jacket. Kim found it on eBay. It is dark blue with black embroidery on it. It had been hand tailored in Hong Kong, exclusively for The Seven Seas in Fort Worth Texas. Beneath that tag are some orange threads that had once held on some other label. I am sure that the smoking jacket has some interesting story behind it. Why was it sold on eBay?

I’ve always wanted a smoking jacket. So, no, Greg I will not to smoke in. I did smoke a pipe years ago. I love the smell of pipe smoke, but I don’t like what the smoke does to people. So, while it is called a smoking jacket, I won’t smoke in it. Instead, as Dean suggested in a comment to a previous post, I will stroke my beard and make ponderous comments. I think it goes well with my persona. Sigmund, Carl and Alfred may accues me of being pretentious in doing so. Perhaps they are right, but I am being very conscious of this choice to be pretentious and I think we would all be served well at pretending to be a little more reflective and erudite.

Mairead also received a very special gift; another one of those unexpected special surprises. However, it is important for Mairead to tell her best friend at college about this present, and I believe her friend has read this blog, so I will wait until after Mairead is back at school before I reveal what it is.

So, what made this Christmas so special? I think it has something to do with getting something unexpected, something more than was anticipated, and something that reflected great care and thinking about everyone in the family. It was a special Christmas.