Kids love toys, but grandpa prefers the gift of togetherness

With Christmas only two days away, I’m finished with all my shopping.

For me, that isn’t saying much because my gift-buying is pretty limited. My wife and I don’t buy gifts for each other, our children or close relatives. In fact, at this stage of our lives our gift giving is pretty much limited to our grandchildren, who range in age from 1 year to the mid-20s.

But when those grandchildren reach the age of 18 years, they move into the adult-no-gift category.

And that is where it gets difficult.

There are two things that make it hard for me. The first is that I don’t see the grandchildren more than two or three times a year, so I don’t know what they like. Secondly, kids these days get presents all year long, so they already have everything.

Things I like just don’t interest today’s kids. Several years ago when my wife and I were shopping for Christmas presents, we came upon a two-gun cowboy pistol set — two pearl-handled six-shooters, holsters and plastic bullets lining the belt. Really cool. I wanted to buy it. But my wife pointed out that kids just don’t play “cowboy” anymore. I carried on about how neat it was, and I ended up getting it for Christmas. It hangs on the shelf prominently displayed with some of my other toys.

And that’s the rub. I tend to shop for what I’d like, for what I liked when I was 10.

While helping sort toys for the Atascadero Loaves and Fishes Christmas Outreach last week, I handled hundreds of great gift ideas. There was even a vintage Erector set, which I would have bought for my 8-year-old grandson who is in a STEM program and loves science, math and techno stuff. For the record, I didn’t see a single cowboy pistol set.

I refuse to buy electronic stuff because I don’t know what most of it does. I don’t like any of the grandkids having it anyway, but I lost that battle eons ago.

Recently I’ve done pretty good buying Lego kits and small plastic horses and farm animals. I built a whole bunch of corrals and gates for two granddaughters to go with their herd.

My grandson and I can assemble the Lego kits, although I’m a bit slow for him. He likes to see how fast he can put them together, and I linger to make the sharing experience last longer. We have divergent goals here.

But the biggest gift of all is all being together at Christmas. Nothing else seems to matter when it comes right down to it.

This story was originally published December 22, 2014 at 12:48 PM with the headline "Kids love toys, but grandpa prefers the gift of togetherness."