It’s true that no one actually needs a giant stuffed green sea turtle.
Waiting in line at my favorite shipping business — where they know me by name and see me often this time of year — I had time to think about that word, need.
I’m talking need, as in, “Don’t get me anything this year. I don’t need a thing.”
My octogenarian parents say it every year: “We don’t need a thing.” They’re right, they want for nothing except new cartilage in their joints and for their grown kids to have all the time in the world to spend with them. How I’d love to be able to come through with that poignant, unspoken wish list, of things taken for granted in younger years.
Instead, I disobey my parents. I give them things.
That’s what I was doing Tuesday morning at Everett Pack-Man, standing in line to send them something they really don’t need. This was a pre-Christmas gift, one of several packages they’ll get from me in the next couple weeks. In that first box were tins of cookies I spent the weekend making.
They’re nothing fancy, just buttery spritz shot out of a cookie gun and dates stuffed with walnuts and powdered-sugar frosting like my mom used to make. Of course my father doesn’t need them. Who on earth needs more butter and sugar? Those cookies may be unneeded, but I know they won’t be unwelcome.
Back to that stuffed turtle, though. In front of me in line was young man in a Navy uniform, with close-cropped hair and a nice smile. He was there to ship the critter and a knit hat to someone in Spokane. I had boxed up my cookies at home, but his gifts were unwrapped and being weighed and measured to be boxed by the woman at the counter.
Nosy enough to be eyeing the gifts, I had to stop myself from asking: Are they for a child? A wife or girlfriend? Your mom?
I didn’t ask, but had to comment on the sea turtle, which was so big its flippers were hanging off the store’s scale. “Who wouldn’t love that?” I said to the man, hoping he’d reveal something about the recipient. He didn’t. He only smiled, hopefully meaning he was pleased the turtle had been judged a hit.
Back in 2000, I wrote a column about waiting each year for one moment that makes it Christmas. A former co-worker and I used to kid each other about it. We’d ask: “Have you had your Christmas moment yet?”
I’ve never found it in the biggest gift box or at a splashy party. Usually it sneaks up, say, while you’re waiting in line at Everett Pack-Man.
We’ll often hear about people shipping items to troops serving overseas. Here was a young military man doing some holiday shipping of his own. It cost him $14 to get that turtle to Spokane. Later, I felt badly I hadn’t offered to pay his bill along with shipping my cookies.
Through the years, I’ve gotten better at waiting and paying attention. A moment comes, or maybe just a hint of one, at a children’s music program, a dinner with the kids, or while out walking to see a neighbor’s yard filled with lights.
Nobody’s holidays are as smooth as the ice on a Currier and Ives pond. Lives aren’t Christmas cards. They’re messy. We’re short on time, money and sleep. Take a breath, take a moment, and take in something — anything — that makes it Christmas.
I couldn’t help but notice the hurried sailor shipping a turtle on a weekday morning.
Those people who say they don’t need a thing? They need what we all need — to know they’re special to someone.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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