Friday, December 19, 2008
I was getting too many magazines, and found time (or interest) to read few. So over the past two years I've been letting subscriptions lapse. This month I became aware of an unintended consequence - no calendars! I actually had to go out and buy a 2009 calendar, the first calendar I've bought in decades. (The best free ones always came from the wildlife groups.)
Which reminds me - one of Jay's sisters used to send me a wall calendar every year for Christmas. Yeah, a calendar. Anyone who isn't marking up calendar pages long before December 25th doesn't need a calendar. And the free ones from the subscriptions were nicer. (BTW, I always sent Jay's sisters jewelery from the Smithsonian catalog.)
I always seem to get lousy gifts. Ex#2 was the worst. He'd stop at the grocery store on the way home on my birthday or Christmas Eve, and then hand me an unwrapped nylon spatula as a gift. I'm not kidding. And then there was the one 8-oz skein of red polyester yarn. One. Also unwrapped. Because, as he explained, he knew I liked to knit.
One year he actually had a long flattish wrapped box under the Christmas tree. I was so excited. I was sure it was the grandmother clock I had pointed out to him. When I shook the box, there was a metallic rattle, just like a pendulum might make. He grinned and said he was sure I'd like it. Christmas morning I opened the box, and found an electric space heater.
The next weekend we were going to visit his parents, who lived in a drafty cold farm house, where I suffered from chilblains when we visited in the winter, so he got the space heater so I wouldn't be so cold there. Frankly, I'd rather not go at all, but that wasn't an option. I was even more pissed when he insisted that we leave it with his parents when the weekend was over, "They need it more than we do". And I was triply pissed when on our next visit, the heater was gone. His mother had given it away. Chilblains again.
Jay was better with gifts, he wanted to do it right, but it was obviously such a strain for him that I suggested that perhaps he could just take me shopping and let me pick a few things out, "you write down the information", and then he could go back and get any one of them, and it would be perfect, and a surprise.
I'm to the point now where I don't want gifts at all. I don't have room for anything else! I ask for a hand and foot massage from Daughter, and his famous peanut butter cookies from Hercules, and that's all I want.
I've told The Man that I don't want gifts on occasions that would appear to call for gifts. I'd rather have impromptu "gee, she'd like that" stuff out of nowhere for no reason.
It means more that way. More from the heart than because the calendar says "now you must".
I'd like to do away with Christmas gifts altogether. Think about how it would change the celebration if Santa voluntarily retired.
4 comments:
Yeah..I call them Obligatory Gifts...I don't like them and I seldom get the other kind. Few people seem to see the distinction between the two types, though.
Last Christmas my daughter received a Yoga mat from her husband. He got it free at work. That was a few months before the divorce. Which turned out to be the best gift anyway.
You really hit home for me on this one, on all of the examples--The missing electric heater, the yarn, etc. Several weeks ago I wrote on my blog about this type of gift and called it "Electric Bun Warmers".
About calendars, I haven't used a tangible one since 1998 when I was given my first PDA. I kind of miss the cool pictures and motivational sayings on them, but love having the portability of the PDA.
The space heater story is like a sitcom in which a character buys their wife a vacuum cleaner. (Which sucks! Pun intended.)
For some reason, free calendars abound in New Jersey. Right now, I have one from Perkins Pancake House and the Golden Corner Diner. I have no doubt that they'll be giving them out at St. Fatty's. French toast recipes and holy days of obligation. What's not to love?
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