A holiday gift that may never come: children

It’s Christmas week, but I’m not feeling it yet. Would it help if I sent out Christmas cards or decked my halls with boughs of holly?

The truth is, I’m not the type to get mopey around the holidays. I reserve that for non-holiday periods. So, rest assured I will sail through the week without a tree and without presents and yet somehow emerge as psychologically sturdy as ever.

Now that I’ve eased your mind on the state of my holiday health, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I sometimes wonder if Christmas would have felt different over the years if I’d had kids.

Photos. Memories. Videos. Old credit card receipts. Anything.

There now, don’t get all weepy. I’m not the only palooka who has advanced into his declining years without children or the Christmas flashbacks they inevitably invoke. Nor is it a subject that keeps me awake nights or thrashing about amid laments of a life less lived.

But I think it is a life less lived. And it’s a thought more pronounced during Christmas week, because how can you think of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day without thinking of children?

Does it get any better than watching a 5-year-old open a present? Or watching a 7-year-old get that first bicycle? Or watching a child in the early throes of Santa Claus love piece together for the first time that the fat man not only left presents but came down the chimney as well?

If a life fully lived must by definition include moments of unbounded joy, I must conclude that something for me has been lost by not being a parent on Christmas morning.

I know that, because I’ve seen “the look” when grown-up friends open a CD or a sweater I’ve given them. I’ve heard an adult squeal when getting one of my gifts, but that was merely irritating. I’m glad they were pleased, but could that reaction really compare to that of a 6-year-old getting a new puppy from me, their extremely cool dad?

I doubt it. That’s a look I would have enjoyed seeing. Come on, who doesn’t want to be the cause of someone else’s unadulterated, shrieking joy? Especially if that someone is 12 or under and cute as a button?

If by now you’re now sobbing uncontrollably for me and thinking, “There’s still time, there’s still time!,” no, there isn’t.

No, I don’t have a terminal illness, but I never wanted to be one of those guys who fathered a child in his dotage just because he could do it. The day of picking out puppies or bikes for a 6-year-old has long passed.

The closest I can come to conjuring up the feeling is to recall that previous lifetime when the Former Beloved Spouse and I would talk about the future and the two delightful scamps we would produce. If you must know, we had the names picked out ... but, seriously, what’s the point in all of us bursting into tears?

Suffice it to say things happen. From this vantage point of rapidly passing years, I suspect I would have been an overspending dad at Christmas, caring not if I spoiled the child. Most likely, my thought process would have been: If one squeal of delight was a wonder to behold, how much more fun would half a dozen be?

Question to you parents: Is it really as fun as it sounds to leave cookies out for Santa?

OK, before venturing into total sappiness, let’s keep it real. I am not writing this while downing my seventh eggnog, nor am I gazing into the dying embers of an empty hearth.

I’m in full possession of my faculties and just saying that, on the roll call of life’s great moments, watching your child open a present on Christmas morning has got to be on the list. I lament not getting a shot at that, but am happy for those of you who have or will.

What I’m trying to say is, I don’t hate you.

As for Christmas Day, I won’t spend it walking cold streets or in an empty, darkened movie theater (although I’ve done both). I’m trekking up to L.A. to spend the day with my sister, who does know the pleasure of delivering presents to tykes on Christmas Day.

I have a funny feeling she’ll bring it up a time or two during the day. And we’ll recall our own childhoods when we were the ones scampering down the stairs to scavenge the boxes under the tree and watching Mom and Dad beam from ear to ear.

And the stories won’t make me mopey. They’ll make me smile.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.