Little Presents
By: Tyrene Jones Essell
Tags: Christmas, Baby

Photo @bydarius (Instagram)

You can call me a sap for Christmas. Every year I willingly fall for the overplayed Christmas songs, twinkling decorations, holiday movies with predictable storylines, and long nights perfecting my wrapping skills. I owe this joy of the season to my grandparents. Every year, the Jones house was filled with people, presents, and the Christmas spirit. My grandfather loved topping our tree with a Black angel; these little symbols instilled pride in us as a Black family. We would decorate the tree together, each of us choosing which ornament we wanted to gift the tree with. Our favorite part about giving our tree the works was covering it in candy canes. Our real treasure of this experience was eating the leftover ones. By December 25th, the candy canes that had their chance to dangle on the tree throughout the month had reached their natural downfall thanks to 6 young, sugar-loving children. Actually, that would be 5 children if you don’t count my brother Michael who never grew fond of candy. I vividly remember our living room being scattered with tree lights, glitter, and garland until our Christmas aesthetic was complete. I cherished how my grandfather managed to create a musical score of our experience featuring Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas album, which I still play today.

I still never quite fully understood how they successfully made our Christmases special, even with so little. Of course, we were taught the real joy through the Son of peace, which we all came around to believe on our own in our own unique ways. My grandparents captured our attention and built incredible anticipation year after year, knowing that it would lead to a lack of sleep on Christmas Eve. My siblings and I would count down the hours until we could rush downstairs to see what Grandma and Grandpa got us for Christmas. I kind of liked that they never gave Santa any credit for their efforts; our cousins who got tagged Santa gifts might argue differently. Our grandparents knew us uniquely and appreciated the individualism of us all. This was reflected in their spirit of gift-giving.

Certainly, there were times where our grandparents didn’t actually give us the gifts we liked. My grandmother was a Popular Club junkie; it was one of those catalogs where you could order anything from beauty items, clothes, toys, and furniture. I’ll never forget disappointing my grandparents when they asked if I liked the coat they got me from Popular Club. Or, that time, Grandma made us all wait in the car at the onset of a winter storm while she shopped for winter boots for my sister and me. In the late 90s, it wasn’t strange to leave kids unattended in vehicles while parents shopped. To be fair, my sister was probably 13 at the time, and hauling several kids into a retail store seems like a daunting task. My grandmother parked the van on Weybosset St. in Providence directly across from the Payless Shoe Store. She would appear in the glass window showing us a pair of boots and wait for our affirmation. After a smile and eager green light from each of us, my grandmother returned to the van with two shoe boxes. I chose the chocolate brown flat boot that slightly hovered over the ankle and was decorated with laces from top to bottom. It was the kind of boot that I would still wear now; I actually just tossed a worn-out pair similar to those a few years ago. As my sister and I gleefully removed our wet sneakers to put on our new boots, we realized my grandmother had gotten the sizes wrong. In that case, there was no return as she drove off. I wore the shoes my sister liked and she wore the ones I wanted. We knew better than to complain about Grandma’s efforts.

On those Christmas mornings, my grandparents would pass out each gift under the tree one by one. My siblings and I would share in each other’s excitement. Our enthusiasm grew as we heard one of our name’s called out one by one, “this one’s for Roderick,” my grandfather would exclaim. We’d ooh and aah, studying the shape of every gift meticulously to capture a sense of what was hidden underneath the wrapping. Finally, in our own little corners, we’d claw through each present with happiness, and we’d give our Grandparents endless thank you’s, hugs, and kisses. One of my favorite gifts was my Brother word processor. It was one of those bulky electronic typewriters with floppy disk capability and tiny LCD screens. They were heavy and probably better suited for an adult, but 11-year-old me would trek that baby all over the house. That gift was a reflection of how much they knew me.

As I’m sitting in our house in San Diego, things look slightly different from my cold Decembers in Rhode Island. In our Essell house, my husband and I have decorated in the same Christmas spirit. I still play the Merry Christmas album, but I occasionally give it a break to enjoy Kacey Musgrave’s holiday special. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about 6 eager children, but we’re excited to share the blessing of 1 little present with Baby Essell on the way. I can’t think of a better time of the year to share our growing family’s joy. We appreciate the gleams of our future and the moment we get to unwrap our little present.