Holiday Cheer

I took the family out to dinner one night a few days ago. It wasn’t anything special, just a routine trip to our favorite sammich spot in town, Philly Bilmos. If you’ve never been, you should go. They’re fantastic.

Sylus behaved decently while in the restaurant. We had to threaten him with the baby seat about 10x, but he was good for the most part (ie: no epic fits over lack of chocolate milk, etc).

After dinner, Krysti, Sylus and I wandered down to Big Lots as per Sylus' request. He likes going down to Big Lots to look at the Christmas decorations and we happen to like walking around for a bit after eating, so it was a win-win decision.

As we browsed the aisles aimlessly, Sylus was behaving, but still being an energetic little almost3yr old. I don't remember doing anything out of the ordinary. He’s very aggressively-polite sometimes. He likes to say “excuse me” or “Merry Christmas!” to complete strangers at high levels (to make sure they hear his tiny little voice, I’m sure) and typically much sooner than necessary. For example, a random stranger was standing at the end of an aisle that was a good 20ft in front of us. Sylus decided it was time to start saying “excuse me” about 15ft too soon.

Sylus is pretty good about not touching things, or if he does grab something off the shelf, putting it back upon our request. This trip to Big Lots was no different from any trip to the store. We let him walk on his own as long as he holds onto one of our hands and doesn’t take off running. He definitely passed the test this evening. We interact quite a bit. He likes to point out when he sees things he recognizes (ie: super heroes on the shampoo bottles, etc) and I like to confirm that he is correct in naming Iron Man, Hulk, and Wolverine. As Krysti checked out, I let Sylus wander a bit near the front of the store. He saw Batman on the packaging for a snack of some sort, and he wanted to check it out, so we did.

As we walked out of the store, I hear a voice behind me saying, “excuse me!” so I turn around. It’s a random lady that I recognized from inside the store and she’s holding a card in her hand. I immediately reach for my wallet to make sure I didn’t drop it for some awful reason. As she approaches me, I see that she has a gift card in her hand. She goes to hand it to me and says, “Merry Christmas”. I look her right in the eye (well, mostly in the eye…I was wearing my Santa hat, and the fuzzies cloud my vision a little bit) and say, “you don’t have to do that…” with a bewildered look on my face. She looks back at me and says, “it’s only $25” and clearly won’t take no for an answer. So I take the card, say Merry Christmas, and turn to walk away.

I go to get Sylus in my car, and Krysti gets in her car. We took 2 cars because I met Krysti and Sylus at QFC earlier that evening (immediately after work) so we could see Santa. I drive home in quiet reflection on the events that just transpired. Do I look like I need $25? Why did she choose us for her random act of kindness? Does she know me from somewhere, and I just failed to recognize her? Is this a shred of good karma coming back to me because of all the points I’ve stacked up this past year? Who knows.

Krysti interacted with the lady once more after Sylus and I left. There was some sort of mixup with the gift card, and the lady had to get the cashier to activate a different card or something like that. You’ll have to check with my wife to get the details on the story, but the gist of it is this random lady said we were the nicest little family she had seen in public. She saw how we interacted with Sylus, talked to him calmly, corrected him, but didn’t scold him when he did something he wasn’t supposed to, didn’t yell at him, etc. She basically said we were a breath of fresh air compared to some of the parents/families she had observed over the holiday season; which is understandable, as everyone seems to be a little more stressed out in December.

My first inclination is to pay it forward, and donate the $25 to a different family in need. I have more useless stuff than I need, and have reached a point in my life where I’d rather see someone else, who could use it more than me, benefit from random windfalls of cash. It’s not about the money. The real gift for me was the reaffirmation that I’m doing a good job as a parent and a role model. I’m incredibly proud of myself and my family for all the little achievements we’ve accomplished together. It’s good to know that the general public sees how different our approach is, and maybe we can be a beacon for other young parents and small families.

To the random lady at Big Lots, thank you for the boost in confidence and reassurance that sometimes, I do know what I’m doing as a parent.

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

-Linus