The Almighty Dollar

by Daniel Griffin

Over the holidays, my wife’s father fell ill, and she went east to be with him. Just before Christmas, he passed away. It made for a difficult holiday season. The kids missed their mother—she’d never been gone this long before and she’d certainly never been away for Christmas. Plus of course, we were all dealing with grief. We needed distraction. We needed excitement, something fun and festive. One day when we were all particularly glum, I led the kids on a Christmas shopping expedition.

Back when I was a kid, my brothers and I would spend a Saturday afternoon each December in the local department store buying gifts for everyone in the family. I decided it was time to give my kids the chance to do the same. Unfortunately, there aren’t many department stores left, so we drove down to the Mighty Dollar instead. I’m not a fan of dollar stores and all their cheap plastic junk, but at some level, that’s what Christmas is about these days—plastic junk you don’t need. The cheap angle just lets us get more of it.

At the entrance to the store, I gave each of my three daughters fifteen bucks and a shopping bag and sent them on their way. The first thing Evelyn said was “Can you stay away so you don’t see what I’m buying?”

She managed to avoid me for the next half hour except once when she found a present she couldn’t resist showing off. She held up a pair of pink cheerleader pompoms and beamed at me. “For Tessa,” she said.

Tessa and Vivian were reluctant to venture off on their own. They hung around me until I offered to lead them around. Tessa chose presents carefully and methodically and often asked my opinion. And she knew enough to have me turn or walk away for a moment when she had her eye on a gift for me.

Vivian was indiscriminate. She’s only three and her shopping bag was nearly as big as she was. On her way down the aisle, she picked things off the shelves almost without looking at them. Five minutes in and she was almost at her spending limit. I poked into her bag, asked her who everything was for. The zip lock bags? “Muma.” The tin foil? “Muma.” The gardening gloves? “Muma.” The hair brush? “Muma.” The party blowers? “Pop Fred”—my father-in-law. “He’s dying,” she said after a pause. “He has a stroke.”

That stopped me. “You’re right, he does. Shall we send these to him?”

Vivian nodded.

I put most of her purchases back in the bag. “Remember to get things for your sisters as well.” From then on I tried to keep count of what she took from the shelves. When the count hit fifteen, I told her she was done. Of course, that meant nothing to a three-year-old. Vivian was unable to walk down an aisle without stuffing things in her bag. The moment I turned my back, she popped something in. At check out time, she had half a dozen items too many.

Viv’s last purchase was a Canadian flag. By the time we were at the till, the flag had separated from the pole. (Did I mentioned this was a dollar store?) I set it aside, but let her buy fifteen other things, and paid the taxes from my own wallet.

As we left, weighted down with plastic junk, Viv asked for the flag. The phrasing of her request revealed something important about her shopping technique. She called it “my flag.”

I tried to explain that these were all presents. Nothing she bought was for her. That didn’t sink in. “I want my Canada flag,” she said. I told her it had broken. She screamed, “I want my Canada flag.” I took her by the hand, but she threw herself to the floor, kicked and screamed.  “I want my Canada flag.”  She yelled it over and over, cheeks red and wet with tears, arms and legs flailing. In the end, I carried her out to the car while she coughed and spat and yelled, “I want my Canada flag.” With some work, I strapped her in, but she screamed all the way home. When we were finally inside and Vivian had subsided, I said to her sisters, “At least we know what to get her next year.”

By then maybe I will have recovered enough to take them shopping again.

Daniel Griffin is a writer and a father of three.  He lives in Victoria.