Assigned an op-ed piece on Christmas for his middle-school newspaper, my 12-year-old son got right down to it. "I once asked my parents why we don't go to church," he writes. "And they said we don't need someone to tell us how to live our lives."

	Daniel Marsula, Post-Gazette Click illustration for larger version. Kristin Kovacic is the co-editor of "Birth: A Literary Companion" (University of Iowa Press). She lives and shops in Oakland.

After noting that this philosophy pushes us off the edge of the Christian map, somewhere in the territory of Quakers (though we're not), he continues, "I know there must be some force out there. I just don't think about it too much. Life isn't supposed to be one big mystery; you're supposed to have fun and enjoy it while you can."

He then describes our family's Christmas traditions -- opening Hallmark Advent calendars sent by his faithful Catholic grandmother, putting up a tree -- and he conjures a considerable amount of vivid detail on opening his gifts. "Christmas for me," he concludes, "is one big thrill week."

I imagine the readers of the middle-school paper, or this one, shaking their heads at my pre-teen's take on the meaning of Christmas. And I confess to my own momentary shame at such a public measurement of our spiritual depth. We're not believers. Yet we celebrate Christmas with gusto. In his truthful and (pride forces me to note) well-written article, my son has exposed us as a fun-loving family of hypocrites.

I suppose I should turn in my motherhood badge, now, that tin halo we all get in the manger of the delivery room. It's pretty dinged up anyway. But I'd still have to bake six dozen thumbprint cookies, with two kinds of frosting; take and make 75 copies of a picture of the kids (taking care their hair doesn't look retarded) to send out with our cards; prepare the living room for the tree, its 100 fragile ornaments and 10 million needles I'll be sweeping the rest of the year; and -- most onerous of all -- I'd still have to do the Christmas shopping. I loathe shopping.

If I'm a hypocrite, I'm a damned dumb one. Why do all this work if you don't even believe in the cause?

One answer is "tradition," that euphemism for all family habits, good and bad. Another is that, though I don't believe that Jesus is my savior, I believe in the habit of giving, and I give to my children in order to convey this and other beliefs.

I believe in conservation, so when they were small, I wrapped up used toys from resale shops and put them under the tree. One year I found funky old suitcases at the Goodwill and filled them with vintage dress-up clothes -- prom gowns and Zoot suits and bowling shirts stitched with names like "Butchie." Though they've grown out of dress-up, they still use the suitcases.

I believe it's OK to eat animals, but not to trap them for your amusement. So when my daughter wished for a pet, I carefully wrapped a decorator's ostrich egg in tissue, and wrote a note from Santa telling her that, sadly, this egg didn't hatch, and that its mother asked her to care for it. The way she cradled it is my enduring image of her.

I believe that childhood is its own spectacular gift, and that any objects thrown at it should at least take the Hippocratic oath. I've done my time in the Big Boxes, shopping for the basic equipment of childhood -- storybooks and ice skates and sleds and crayons: the stuff you see tumbling out of Santa's sack on Christmas specials, but which real children, or at least my children, never ask for.

You see, because of my beliefs, my children rarely get what they want for Christmas. Whether they've been naughty or nice, almost nothing on their wish list appears under the tree. Their current lists, gamely posted on the refrigerator, are works of pure fantasy. Cell phones, laptops, video games, iPods, $300 brand-name Arctic parkas, instant messaging, private bathrooms, pets of all species, from ferrets to greyhounds. Everything I'd never give them, even if I could afford it, appears on their lists.

"Go ahead and wish," I've been saying for years. "Wishes are free." And then I deny every one. I've often wondered about this tradition. I've wondered if they view the Christmas wish list as their annual opportunity to critique my Luddite parenting. Or if I actually believe that disappointment, like leafy vegetables and whole grains, is good for you.

But what my son claims in his editorial is that he isn't disappointed at all. He's thrilled. It gives me faith, which I sorely need, heading into these final shopping days.

My kids' childhoods are winding down, and the challenge of buying gifts I believe in feels monumental this year. Truthfully, I'm having a hard time moving forward, into the age of electronics and fashion, to give them things that will wire and attire them for their futures beyond me. I know ostrich eggs don't cut it any more, and I also know that cell phones and instant messaging disconnect you from the people physically closest to you -- from your mother, for example.

As a consumer and as a Christian, I'm a nonbeliever. I don't want the mega-church or the multinational corporation to tell me how to live my life or raise my children. I suspect there's a reason that houses of worship are beginning to look like the Mall of America.

But my kid wants a cell phone; it may truly be his heart's desire. One of my gifts to my children is not letting them see how much I struggle with this. "Go ahead and wish," I say blithely.

Their gift to me might be not showing how much envy actually hurts. Most of the things on their wish lists their friends already have. "I've always wanted one of these," my son will declare, unwrapping a pogo stick, even though he's never once articulated the desire.

We're hypocrites, all right, the tribe of us. But I think we're trying to say something true to each other in our godless, gift-giving dance: I believe in you. I believe in you. If there is a force out there, that's it, and it's pushing me into my car -- following a star toward the last, thrilling gift of their vanishing childhoods.