Christmas is less than two weeks away and I’m still debating one of the most important gifts I need to purchase. My 7-year-old niece, who is the only child not a teenager in my family, has a two-page Christmas list. I recently looked over the list to discover that kids today are not the kids of my generation.

Her list, which includes such items as a book shelf, bean bag chair and iPhone case, may be out of the ordinary to me, but maybe that’s what kids these days want for Christmas.

But thinking back on my Christmas list at that age, a bicycle always seemed to be at the top of the list. Of course, I didn’t always get that bike each year. But I do remember that very first real bike that was under the tree on Christmas morning. My younger brother and I got identical red, white and blue bikes in 1976 – the Bicentennial year. To this day, it is my most memorable Christmas gift.

It seemed like every kid in our neighborhood got a bike that Christmas and we rode in packs everywhere. If it was Little League baseball practice, we rode our bike. We rode our bikes to school, down to the quick-stop and to the local park. And of course we rode to each other’s house to hang out or play in the yard.

It was nothing to see six or eight bikes laying in a yard in our neighborhood (we hardly ever used the kick stand) and a Dad coming home from work honking the horn to get bikes out of the drive way so he can park or have to maneuver his way through a maze of bikes to the front door.

And before bikes, we had “Big Wheels” – a three-wheeler that you pedaled. My brother, who is 11 months younger than me, and I shared a Big Wheel. There was just enough room on the back of it for a kid to put one foot and push off with the other. We’d take turns all day with one sitting and pedaling and the other on back pushing off with one foot.

My point to all this is that it seems kids these days don’t know how to be a kid. A lot of them don’t know what it is to go outside and play or ride a bike.

I live off Porter’s Chapel Road and I have yet to see any kids in my neighborhood riding a bike. There are no yards with bikes laying every which way. But it is the same way in other communities I have lived in. I know there’s a strong biking community among adults in Vicksburg and Oxford, where I most recently lived, but that doesn’t seem to translate into the younger generation enjoying a bike ride.

Before I go much further and come off as the “grouchy old man who lives next door,” let me just add that as adults we need to remind our kids to still be a kid.

Go play outside.

Rob Sigler is editor of The Vicksburg Post. You may reach him at rob.sigler@vicksburgpost.com.