What Do You Want for Christmas?
Trying to avoid falling into the commercialism Christmas has turned into, I've almost forgotten to buy presents. At least I remembered one or two I had to buy on internet, but I've put off traipsing through the stores so long, I'm almost out of time. Especially for my daughter, who will be home a couple of days before Christmas. And she's got a certain power to home in on hidden shopping bags.
It is so difficult to buy for only three or four people, that I can only pity those who buy for all their family, extended and close, and for many of their friends. It is exhausting trying to find something for someone that they will like and use, and not give them something they already have. In these days of plenty all essential needs are covered. And non-essential. It's a little redundant to give someone who likes making desserts, for example, a cookbook. That person will probably already have most of those recipes in one of the cookbooks on their shelf. Someone who likes gardening and has a small gardening shed with everything necessary and a few exotic things you never even heard of won't really need a set of gardening tools. Or a packet of special seeds. Or a cushion for when they kneel in the garden. Or a coffee table book of the most beautiful gardens in the world. Chances are, they already have all that. So you get them a scarf.
A child whose house is filled with all imaginable toys is also difficult to buy for. A child's illusion is toys and play. Not clothes. If you give the child a beautiful, handmade, pure cashmere sweater, they'll throw it in a corner as soon as they unwrap it. The parents may appreciate it, but not the kid. So you buy the kid another truck with firefighter figurines the parents can step on and break in the night and the kid can abandon after a week.
Some people might think a booklover is easy to buy for. There are so many titles out there, surely they'll like whatever you buy for them. Not so fast. A true booklover is a picky person. You may give them a book you think they will like, a spy novel, for example, because they love that genre. But it turns out they don't like the style of the author whose book you bought. And don't even think about giving a sappy romance novel to an assiduous reader of thoughtful, intellectual novels.
Someone who lived through the rationing during World War II once told me she and her siblings had each gotten an orange in their stockings one year. That little present had made their Christmas magical because oranges had become practically inexistent in New England at that time. I'm not saying we need to return to times like those, but something is telling me we own so many objects we can't appreciate the one, rare present when we get it. Such as love. And isn't Christmas all about love?
It is so difficult to buy for only three or four people, that I can only pity those who buy for all their family, extended and close, and for many of their friends. It is exhausting trying to find something for someone that they will like and use, and not give them something they already have. In these days of plenty all essential needs are covered. And non-essential. It's a little redundant to give someone who likes making desserts, for example, a cookbook. That person will probably already have most of those recipes in one of the cookbooks on their shelf. Someone who likes gardening and has a small gardening shed with everything necessary and a few exotic things you never even heard of won't really need a set of gardening tools. Or a packet of special seeds. Or a cushion for when they kneel in the garden. Or a coffee table book of the most beautiful gardens in the world. Chances are, they already have all that. So you get them a scarf.
A child whose house is filled with all imaginable toys is also difficult to buy for. A child's illusion is toys and play. Not clothes. If you give the child a beautiful, handmade, pure cashmere sweater, they'll throw it in a corner as soon as they unwrap it. The parents may appreciate it, but not the kid. So you buy the kid another truck with firefighter figurines the parents can step on and break in the night and the kid can abandon after a week.
Some people might think a booklover is easy to buy for. There are so many titles out there, surely they'll like whatever you buy for them. Not so fast. A true booklover is a picky person. You may give them a book you think they will like, a spy novel, for example, because they love that genre. But it turns out they don't like the style of the author whose book you bought. And don't even think about giving a sappy romance novel to an assiduous reader of thoughtful, intellectual novels.
Someone who lived through the rationing during World War II once told me she and her siblings had each gotten an orange in their stockings one year. That little present had made their Christmas magical because oranges had become practically inexistent in New England at that time. I'm not saying we need to return to times like those, but something is telling me we own so many objects we can't appreciate the one, rare present when we get it. Such as love. And isn't Christmas all about love?
We always had an orange at the bottom of our stockings. My dad used to send oranges like grapefruit in size from Florida and a card reading, Love Jimmy and Norma. The year after he died I got the oranges with the card saying the same thing. The company had forgotten to remove his name, but it turned into the best Christmas present ever. I feel a blog coming on.
ReplyDeleteThat's a beautiful memory! I had been under the impression (30 years ago, so memory may be faint) that oranges weren't common in New England during the war because of gasoline and food rationing. Not like nowadays that they're flown across the world.
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