10. Do Not Celebrate Holidays. Every day is special and should be spent well. Do not recognize the date of your birth. It is irrelevant. In Scottish Buddhism you are ageless.

​I used to hate Christmas, but since becoming a Scottish Buddhist, I couldn’t be more indifferent. I grew up in Connecticut and had nothing but Norman Rockwell inspired Thanksgiving and Christmases. But when I look back on my Christmases, I don’t remember any of the gifts (except Pink Floyd’s The Wall, thanks again, Mom and Dad). What I remember is the Christmas when I gave my cousin Cathy a pen.
 
Gift swapping was a big thing among the extended family and it was very stressful. Everybody took turns opening their presents so the gift giver could get their proper credit for the Greatest Present Ever, Just What I Always Wanted!
 
I had no idea what to get my older cousin Cathy in the run-up to Christmas. I spent hours trying figure out what an eighteen year-old girl in the late 1970’s would want from her thirteen year-old male cousin. Clothes, music, a book? I had no idea.
 
Christmas Eve, I had gifts for everybody but her. As we headed down to dinner and the big gift exchange, Mom needed something from the store and I ran in behind her to find something for Cathy. I got her a pen. I wrapped it on the ride down and cringed when she opened it. Christmas was no longer fun for me.
 
Several years later I was living in a low-income neighborhood and put together a Secret Santa toy drive that matched generous families to less fortunate ones. We put together huge and wonderful gift boxes for 176 families who didn’t even know they were going to get anything. It was pure Santa Claus, and we delivered on Christmas Eve.    
 
I delivered to one door and I wasn’t sure anybody was home because it was so dark and quiet. The women who answered had been crying and couldn’t believe the two big boxes, overflowing with gifts for her and her seven-year old son and five-year old daughter. I don’t know if I’d ever seen anybody so happy.
 
She called around a couple days later and found out who put this together. She said she had sent her kids off to her mother’s house for Christmas ‘cause she wasn’t able to buy her children anything. She was laying on the couch with a major headache and crying when I showed up.
 
But there were about 30 families who had moved in the month between when we set up the Secret Santa and Christmas. The storeroom we operated out of was full of undelivered gifts on Christmas Day. And then there were all those kids who Santa never even thought of in the first place. What about them? No wonder some people grow up bitter. I was done with Christmas.
 
When I started dating my Eventual Wife, I made it very clear that I don’t celebrate holidays. I don’t like birthdays and I don’t do Christmas. But she still expected me to make a big deal out of them, which caused a little friction.
 
We got married anyway, and a year later, our anniversary approached. I knew it was coming but I decided I to take a stand. I pretended to forget our first anniversary. She was upset, of course, but it worked out perfectly. I set the bar REALLY low and every time I gave her a present for no reason or whisked her away for a fancy dinner just because it was Tuesday, it was WAY better than an expensive birthday present or fancy anniversary dinner. No pressure, just good times.
 
And that’s how you make a marriage last ten years. When she left me, she never even brought up the whole holidays thing.