One of the best gifts you can give another person is opening the door to something new and glorious.
Elysha, for example, convinced me years ago to give the NPR radio show “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me” a try after I scoffed at the absurdity of a radio game show.
Turns out I was wrong.
Since she convinced me to listen almost two decades ago, I haven’t missed an episode. We often listen as a family in the car, and she and I have taken the kids to a live taping of the show.
What a fantastic gift — 20 years of entertainment I would’ve missed had it not been for her.
She also introduced me to her high school friend, Shera, and, more importantly, her husband, David, who has since become a good friend of mine. Among other things, David is a writer, a sports fan, a Springsteen fan, and someone who shares many of my sensibilities.
Elysha opened the door to a new and important person in my life many years ago, and I have been eternally grateful.
My friends Tom and Jeff introduced me to golf when I thought the game was elitist and stupid. Thanks to their insistence and persistence, I have been playing golf for nearly 20 years, and it’s one of my very favorite things in this world.
I’ve since passed on my love for golf — and the original set of clubs Tom gave to me — to at least four friends who have become equally enamored.
The gift that keeps on giving.
I mention this because, on Saturday night, Eluysha and I sat the kids down in front of the television to watch “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” for the first time together. My friend, Coog, convinced me to watch the show back in 1996, and after rejecting it at first — failing to see the comedy amidst the angst — I soon fell in love with the show, watching the entire series at a time when doing so required a lot of effort:
Recording constantly. Finding episode lists on an early, archaic version of the intenet. Tracking down and waiting for hard-to-find episodes to finally air. Monitoring TV viewing guides for appearances of the show on new networks.
Watching a series in order without missing an episode took effort back then, but I made it happen.
I introduced her to the show when I started dating Elysha in 2004. By then, DVDs of the show were available, so we spent many hours sitting together, watching and loving the Scooby gang’s adventures. When Elysha and I list our favorite TV shows of all time, we both include “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” at or near the top.
I often consider it one of the best gifts I’ve ever given her.
So now we’re offering that same gift to our kids, and since much of the television viewing in our home is done as a family, we have many hours ahead of us to sit as a foursome and watch Buffy and her friends battle evil again and again. It will be the third and likely final time I watch the series from beginning to end, thus offering our children the same gift Coog gave me and I gave Elysha, but will also give our family a gift that we have always adored:
Time spent together listening, watching, and discussing something that we love. While so many people spend so much time trapped in their individual media bubbles, Elysha and I have always tried to prioritize watching things together as a family — television, movies, Broadway shows, sports events, and concerts.
Whenever possible, we sit down as a family to watch. It’s time we consider precious, and it’s helped to build a lifetime of memories with our kids.
I’m excited to spend time with Buffy Summers and her friends again, but I’m even more excited about sitting beside my wife and kids, watching, laughing, discussing, and debating a show that Elysha and I love and the kids will likely love, too.
They loved the first two episodes.
Coog offered me this gift almost 30 years ago, and I gave the same gift to Elysha 20 years ago. Now, Clara and Charlie will enjoy it, too.
Baubles, trinkets, bits of technology, and the like make lovely gifts, but the best gifts are not nearly as tangible as most people think. Instead, the gift of joy, passion, entertainment, friendship, time well spent, and time spent together will always be better than even the most expensive, luxurious, and flashy.
