Dad, What Do You Want For Christmas?

Saturday, December 21/19

"Dad, what do you want for Christmas?"

That was the question I was asked at brunch with my kids yesterday by my daughter.

It was just me with my son and daughter as my grandson was doing a craft with his father for something he wanted to give his mom, I'm thinking along the lines of a picture but I could be wrong.

She had to get out of the house and stopped by her mom's place to get her brother and then called me to ask if I wanted to meet them for brunch at Milestones. Of course, that was a no brainer as I'll never turn down a chance to break bread with my children.

We ended up sitting at a nice four-top in the bar and were having a great conversation about pretty much everything, with my son sharing his shopping adventures at Bayshore on Friday with his girlfriend and my daughter telling us about how Jack has been following her around and pointing at her belly and saying his soon to be sisters name Solara and smiling. Both of these had me smiling and laughing.

As we were finishing our meal my daughter looked at me and asked me "Dad, what do you want for Christmas?"

I didn't answer her right away and she got exasperated with me and said "I've asked you several times via text and you keep ignoring my question"

I pondered how to answer and took a sip of my iced tea while looking past her out the window to buy myself some time and sensed her getting frustrated with me, but before I could say anything to her my son looked first at me and then to his sister and sort of laughed.

This seemed to make his sister angry and she snapped at him "This is so fucking easy for you,  you see Dad all the time and live with him half the time so you know what he likes and needs"

My son smiled at her, leaned over and gave her a hug, which she tried to shrug out of, and said something that made me realize he pays far more attention to me than I ever imagined, understands me better than I ever gave him credit for all these years.

"Dad can't tell you what he wants for Christmas as neither of us is in a position to get it for him"

I looked at him wondering what he meant and his sister continued giving him a dirty look before she responded "Okay smartass, what can't we give him if we pooled our resources?"

My son looked at me as he answered his older sister, there are ten years between them with my daughter at 30 and my son at 20.

"What does dad not have? He's got every imaginable electronic device he needs, his perfect set of golf clubs, books, music, clothes, he's only missing one thing"

My daughter thought for a moment and looked at me and said in a whisper "A dog?)

I smiled and shook my head as my soon leaned closer to her and softly said "It's far too soon for dad to even think about another dog"

My son looked back at me as he said the following.......

"Dad wants a partner, someone to share his life with, someone to take trips with, someone who'll send him silly texts out of the blue, he wants to be loved and to love"

My daughter looked from him to me and back to her brother and asked him how did he know that was what I wanted for Christmas?

He smiled at her and said "It's what he's wanted for years and though he's good at hiding it, all you have to do is watch him when he sees a couple and it shows in his eyes as they get this brief look of sadness even as he smiles"

My daughter reached over and took my hand in hers and smiled at me as she said "I love you daddy, you are so going to find someone so don't you dare doubt it"

One of my kids seems to know me better than I thought and means I've got to get better at masking my emotions around him, the other one is now going to be after me to get out there and open myself to the possibilities, more than likely to call me more often and see what I'm doing, hoping it encourages me to go on more dates.

Honestly, I think I'd have preferred an iTunes gift card over my son expressing his observations out loud to his sister. Life is about to get very complicated thanks to my youngest.

My name is Marcus and I've been good this year so I should be on Santa's nice list. Wonder what he might leave in my stocking on Christmas Eve?

Today's musical suggestion is seasonally appropriate as it comes from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Ballet in the form of YouTube video for the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy".

The link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV1qLYukTH8

I had the good fortune to see the Alberta Royal Ballet perform this ballet many years ago and loved every moment.

Comments and questions are always welcome, ooasm2018@gmail.com