Article About Us

Our family was honored today by an article in The Birmingham News detailing our Christmas activities. We are so elated that the state's most prestigious paper would feature us that we decided to publish the article here on our family blog.

MIDDLE CLASS PELHAM FAMILY BUYS PRESENTS TO FIND THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS
by Jane Gashen

Christmas is when families gather, carolers sing to their neighbors, and Santa's reindeer whisk through the cool night skies as children sip cocoa by a warm fireplace. But for one middle class Pelham family, the Hudsons, that spirit of love was forgotten this season until they began receiving boxes upon boxes of presents they bought to give friends and family.

Fred, Moyna, and their son Freddy lost the true meaning of Christmas. They became stagnate from carrying out the same traditions of years past. Their list of people to buy for is the same this year as it always has been, and the decorations they put up around the house are years, sometimes decades, old.

"It was so tiring doing the same things we do every Christmas," said Moyna. "I got so depressed that I didn't even realize that this time of the year is about love and family, not presents and how nice your house looks. It's really about the spiritual."

In addition to Christmas repetition causing them to lose focus on what Christmas is all about, their despair reached a pivotal point in late November.

Usually, the Hudsons put up their Christmas tree then, typically just after Thanksgiving. This year, however, they did not. The effort of taking the tree out of its box and adorning it with hundreds of ornaments, as they have done every year before, was just too hard.

"We lost sight of the fact that Christmas is a celebration of togetherness. Because of that, taking the three days it takes to do our tree was just too daunting. We lost the spirit, and we didn't know how to get it back," said Fred. "If you have the spirit, then you are committed to doing the things you do at Christmas, and that includes putting up a tree, and we didn't do that."

He added, "As W. Somerset Maugham observed, 'Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.'"

The climax came when the Hudsons did not send out a family newsletter with their Christmas cards, something they had been doing since at least the late 1990s. In the newsletter they tell friends and family what happened to them throughout the year and what they're up to. Like the tree, it was just too much work.

However, things started to turn around when Moyna started ordering tons and tons of gifts and the presents began to be delievered daily, usually at least four boxes a day. They had so many boxes of goodies, mainly chocolates and other sweets, that one of their bedrooms was overly crowded with stuff, making it nearly impossible to walk around in it.

"When we would go into that bedroom, you basically couldn't walk in there, and things were stacked often five feet high. It was a wonder," said Freddy. "We began taking Christmas presents out of the room to wrap, which with so many presents, it took three full days to complete. Even then, we had so many gifts that we couldn't possibly give everything away to our family and friends."

The Hudsons bought so many presents, and were still getting boxes upon boxes daily, that the sheer volume of it all made them realize Christmas is about giving to those you care about and the love that is shared with family and friends. They realized too that it's a celebration of Jesus' birth. It's a gift the Hudsons know they'll always remember.

As one of their UPS delivery guys, Harry Weltz, put it, "Like so many poor people suffering in other countries, their receiving the boxes I brought was like relief aid. It's really not the same thing, of course, but the Hudsons needed a lift, and I'm happy I helped provide it."

Their three other UPS delivery guys, all of whom Fred got to know personally because of their frequent visits to his home, agreed.

The Hudsons' regaining the true meaning of Christmas is startling because most families of affluence are so lost in making food and rushing to buy gifts, including all the hottest items and latest gizmos, that they forget what Christmas is really about. For a middle class family like the Hudsons to experience the opposite effect, it's quite hard to explain.

According to Yale sociologist Harvey P. Moulich, "The Christmas spirit is a rare commodity usually found only among the poorest classes of people, who without as much are better able to experience the holiday for what it's meant to be. Those with means, in contrast, are typically too vain."

The only question that remains is what the Hudsons will do with all their extra gifts. Moyna is unsure, but knows some of it will go to their neighbors. Today she will send a big box of over twelve different packages of chocolate treats to the Denisons, who live down the street from them.

"Moyna called and told me she is going to send a bunch of chocolates. It's amazing how much they bought for Christmas, for I nearly fainted when I saw their bedroom full of it all. But I certainly do look forward to all the goodies coming my way!" said Dinah Denison.