I Got You A Little Something



"Christmas gift suggestions:
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.”
~Oren Arnold~
 
OR
 
"Don't give
 ceramic-golfing-monkey-door-stops
 as Christmas gifts"
~McDishy~



When I was a little girl, I used to beg my parents to open their gifts early.  Please, please, pul-ease!!!

When I was a little girl, I used to get so excited about giving a gift that I'd almost go into seizure mode trying not to tell the recipient what it was.

When I was a little girl, a six year old little girl, I had my father convinced that I had out-done my six year old self when it came to giving the perfect gift.  I had single-handedly, -brilliantly- if you will, hunted down and purchased the perfect gift for my father. For any father for that matter.

For weeks I would squeal in delight about how much he was going to love his gift. How it reminded me of him, how it was just soooooooo perfect.  He tried to guess what colour it was, whether it was clothes, or food, or music, or something for the house, or the car, or something he could use at work.

He guessed and guessed and guessed until finally it was Christmas morning, and it was time to open the gift.  I was so excited as he held the  "ultimate gift" in his hands.  He held his ear up to the package as he shook it.  I danced from bare foot to bare foot, nightie dancing all over the place as I trembled in delighted anticipation. Oh man! This was it! He was going to loooooooove this gift! I was the best daughter EVER! 

He tore the paper away! Ripped open the box! Plowed through the bubble wrap to unveil.....DRUM ROLL PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE-The! Most! Gorgeous! Ceramic-golfing-monkey-door-stop-you've-ever-seen!  When I looked at his face, the unabashed awe was unmistakable. He was speechless. He loved it. I was six years old, and the best Christmas-gift-giver ever.

Just as a point of interest the ceramic-golfing-monkey-door-stop was no match for the painted ceramic plate with a mill scene which I purchased for him the following year. What can I say, I had a thing for brightly painted ceramics. We were barely out of the 1970's after all.

The ceramics were topped a year later after my grandmother taught me to crochet. I crocheted a light blue "hammer warmer" for my father. He gracefully accepted the gift with a look of extreme unabashed awe, followed by ripples and ripples of laughter from my mother and grandmother. You see, the blue crocheted hammer warmer looked exactly like a blue, well, like a crocheted condom. Yes, yet again, I had outdone myself as the gift-giving-empress.

Needless to say a few years have passed since then, and I think (hope) that my gift giving savy has been somewhat more finely tuned.  In those "few years", I have become a parent myself, and have shared that same unabashed expression of awe unwrapping gifts from my own child.  I think that look is one that every parent owns, or at least rents from time to time.

With Christmas looming in the not too distant future, there are a few gifts that I must buy. I am bound by duty and obligation.  Generally my friends and I have a meal together and make time for one another -what better gift to a friend who appreciates the value of time as a working mother.  A few glasses of bubbly are obligatory.

I would like to say that I scour the gift giving guides in all of the magazines to which I subscribe. I'm a magazine junkie, and although I do scan the gift guides, I don't think that spending fifty dollars on four square inches of lemon yellow, jasmine and citrus scented sachets really makes sense.  I do think spending fifty dollars to make a delicious fruitcake or two makes sense.  My friends would slap me if I bought them a one-hundred and eighty dollar Wedgwood pitcher, but they'd think that spending that much on a meal for a group of us was money well spent.

The simple things are what are most important to me. A homemade pie and cozy jammies, or, eating cake at the dinner table surrounded by the kids for my birthday are what makes the moments special; an afternoon out being made up and eating lunch, drinking beer, eating cupcakes, and gazing at world-class art....these are the moment that I treasure.

In the past I have been the recipient of; gorilla slippers, a vibrating pillow, sugar-free chocolate (that person turned out to be a dud...run if  you ever get sugar-free chocolate from man. Trust me on this one), tacky plastic jewelry that was found not purchased, really stinky soap, candles that ignited themselves entirely, a rabbit (?!), and broken piece of resin decor.

Don't get me wrong. I appreciated these gifts. I appreciate the sentiment more.  Someone told me recently that I was difficult to satisfy.  Not if you really know me.  I think that we're all easy to satisfy if we feel valued, understood and cherished. 

When I was a little girl, as much as I relished opening my presents, the anticipation of just looking at the wrapped gifts underneath the Christmas tree lights made me excited. I would sit in the before bed-time-quiet in my flannel nightie, blond pigtails hanging down, staring, as if at a miracle, at all of the fancy paper and bows.  I would walk up the stairs to my bedroom, taking one last look at that beautiful tree, and snuggle under my covers feeling like the luckiest kid in the world.

To this day, after everyone else is in bed, the magic of Christmas is somehow translated by the glow of the lights on the tree, and the deep peace of silence.  The presents under the tree are for my child now. He goes off to bed with the solitary lights of the Christmas tree glowing down the hallway. I'm left to lock up and unplug the lights before our home closes shop for the night. Still, the possibilities, the hope, the warmth of all that I know and am grateful for becomes clear in that magic space between the twinkling lights and the darkness.