I used to want dolls and stuffed animals and games, then clothes and books and CDs. The things I want now are much harder to box. I want both my girls to be well on Christmas Day. I want all my loved ones to be healthy and safe. I want peace.

I don’t remember when it happened – when I started wanting the intangible things more than the tangible ones. Becoming a parent has something to do with it. But there’s still no definitive moment, no turning point. Change just sneaks up on you, and all of a sudden, you’re writing shopping lists instead of Santa letters.

I suppose it’s just one of those gradual things, like everything about growing older and growing up. Yet somehow it strikes me this year: how the things we yearn for change, how the gifts we enjoy most are the ones we least expect.

———

My sister-in-law gave me an old-fashioned Christmas.

We went to her house in the country and made peanut brittle and Magic Bars. The logs in the wood stove glowed with the lights on the tree; the room smelled of evergreen and butter and chocolate. We listened to carols and made ornaments from red and green construction paper.

My older daughter, Abby, sprinkled colored sugar on cut-out cookies while her baby sister scooted across the floor, dragging her right foot and a jumble of ribbon attached to a spool. When the last batch of cookies was done, the spool had been completely unwound. Strands of gold, red and green ribbon rippled across the kitchen floor, their ends curled around Allie’s toes and hands and shoulders as she sat, oblivious to the tangle, and babbled at the cat.

———

We have a new Christmas tree place.

It’s just down the road, very quiet, and the trees are $10 for the cutting. The ground was dusted with snow the day we went, following a trail of smudged footprints, Abby leading the way with her pink light-up boots.

"Let’s mark this one," she said, stomping a circle around the trunk. "Come on."

"This is the one I want," she declared a few minutes later, stopping in front of a small, pointy tree almost identical to the first one she’d picked.

We decorated it that night, peeling layers of tissue paper from our hodge-podge of ornaments: the family photos framed in ribbons and wreaths; the tiny stocking my grandma crocheted for me and the glittery milkweed angels Abby’s grandma made with her. Afterward, we turned off the lights and stared at our tree of memories.

It was magnificent.

———

We decorated another tree at my dad’s. His ornaments are a blend of new ones we’ve made and old ones he’s saved. The glass balls are still in their original boxes and must be coaxed out, still shiny in some spots, faded in others. These are the ornaments passed down from his parents, the ones I watched him hang when I was a girl. We hang them together, now, between the candy canes and the colored lights, the foam snowman Abby made last year and the angel that’s older than I am. Putting her on top of the tree used to be my dad’s job. This year, it was mine.

———

I went Christmas shopping with my mom. We walked up Main Street, swapping gift ideas, until the gingerbread houses distracted us.

They’re a tradition for us. As kids, my sisters and I made them from graham crackers pasted on small milk cartons with stiff white frosting. Sometimes my mom baked the real stuff, and we fashioned it into families and houses. This year, we stood outside Bresee’s and marveled at other people’s creations: a Rapunzel with red-licorice hair, a fence made of pretzels and peanut butter cups, ice-cream-cone trees, blue pools of melted candy.

We looked at them all, taking in each detail, wondering how they made this or that, admiring the creative spirit.

We only bought one thing.

———

Two days from now, there will be piles of empty boxes and crumpled paper. There will be tinsel-strewn trees in the snow, return lines, sale signs. The suspense will be over, the surprises revealed.

I’m sure I’ll appreciate the gifts in my boxes. But what I’ll truly be grateful for is time spent with the givers.

Lisa Miller is a freelance writer who lives in Oneonta. She can be reached at lisamiller44@hotmail.com.