The Exhausted Dad: The logistics of bicycle giving
The bicycle: A true classic of Christmas gift giving.
My 11-year-old son needed a new bike this season. My wife and I had gifted bikes on birthdays and scooters on Christmas, but as far as I can recall, this was our first opportunity to park a new bicycle under the tree.
Executing that magic moment is more challenging than one might think, especially if you have three other kids to make happy on Christmas morning.
For all of December, we remind our kids that presents shouldn’t predominate the Christmas conversation. Then we promptly undermine those discussions with demands for Christmas wish lists, as well as the prospect of Santa Claus sneaking into our house to deliver even more prizes in exchange for a couple of stale sugar cookies.
Let’s be honest: Kids love Christmas because presents. Just be a good American and support our capitalist ideals!
The conversation about presents in our house then becomes a constant tutorial on fairness and equity. We work tirelessly to ensure that the kids get the same “value” of presents. A kid who asks for a big present (like a bike) won’t get as many smaller gifts. This risks turmoil on Christmas morning in two different directions:
1) “Everybody has more presents than me!”
2) “How come I don’t get a new bike?”
My wife and I prepare for these scenarios as best we can and try to address them before the big day. We also mitigate the risks in two different directions by:
1) Giving a few more Dollar Store items to the bike receiver in order to balance the present count; and
2) Reminding the others of their awesome, not-broken bikes as well as the expense of some of their wish list items.
I don’t share these details to proclaim our family’s stable financial situation or our quality of parenting. Instead, I share them to demonstrate the level of distraction required for my wife and I to almost bungle the whole “Giving a bike under the Christmas tree” magical moment.
As per usual, my wife and I spent the majority of Christmas Eve wrapping presents … something we should have done days or even weeks earlier. Like always, work, school and illness led to another crunch time scramble. We bought our son a Guardian Bike online.
It arrived at least 10 days before Christmas in a humungous box. These bikes are objectively easy to assemble. We bought our youngest son one for his birthday last year, and so we know EXACTLY how easy it is and how much time it takes to put it together (a dummy like me can do it in under 20 minutes).
On Christmas Eve, our kids finally settled into bed about 10 p.m. At this point, my wife and I were completely exhausted. My lower back throbbed from bending over the wrapping paper, tape and scissors for much of the day. We still had several miscellaneous things to do and wrap, but we also didn’t want to loudly fumble around the house while our overexcited kids were trying to fall asleep. Because if they don’t sleep well, the risk of Christmas morning meltdowns becomes nuclear.
So we waited for a while for the kids to quiet down (my two daughters chattered away until about 11:30 p.m. My wife and I dozed off for a few minutes as well. Luckily, we set a few phone alerts to wake us back into our responsibilities.
We regrouped around midnight and finished the remaining Christmas work. At 1:30 a.m., there was one thing left to do: Retrieve the bicycle from the garage, assemble it and park it under the tree.
I lumbered to the garage and drug the giant box through our front door, up the entryway stairs and into our living room. My wife and I looked at each other for a moment, then looked at the giant box. On one side, there was a small picture of the bicycle.
My wife said: “You can tell there’s a bike in there, right?”
Me: “Absolutely. I’d be thrilled to get a giant box like this on Christmas morning, then I’d be thrilled to see that picture and realize it’s a bike.”
My wife: “So we should write his name on a tag, stick it to the side and call it a night?”
Me: “Absolutely. We are fantastic parents.”
And that’s what we did. I didn’t even move the box any closer to the tree. At around 2 a.m. my wife and I went to bed, and we let the future versions of ourselves assemble the bike the next morning (which would begin promptly at 6 a.m.).
The next morning, my son encountered the giant box, spotted his name on the tag and found the picture of the bike. His excitement was off the charts, and he only had to ask us about 10 dozen times to assemble the bike and go outside to try it out. I call that Good Enough Christmas Magic!
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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student and parent to four kids, ages 7-13. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.
The Exhausted Dad
