It’s
eight days until Christmas, and I’ve still got a bunch of gifts to buy. I don’t
particularly like shopping for gifts, because I’m a really lousy gift giver,
and I feel bad about that. Someone who enjoys observing others as much as I do
really should be able to learn enough to give a good gift once in a while,
wouldn’t you think? But no, I give the worst gifts, and I don’t know how this
keeps happening. I’ve tried tricks—buying only
what I like, buying only the opposite
of what I like, even asking the intended receiver outright, and nothing works!
It’s sad. My gifts are destined to end up on a shelf, collecting dust,
never to be used with the joy I’d intended to bestow on the giftee. There’s
always gift cards, of course, but those are a signal to the entire world that I
have simply given up, and I don’t want to send that message to the world, even
if it’s mostly true. So, I trudge on, like the good little trooper I am, hoping
that perhaps this will be the year that I score and give my friends and family
stuff they actually want.
Here’s
a list of some of the gifts I’ve given that no one really liked.
For
Adam, a cashmere sweater. Come on, cashmere! Adam likes luxury, so I decided to
splurge for my little clothes horse. Has he ever worn it? Yeah, he wore it that
Christmas morning. I haven’t seen that sucker since.
For
my sister-in-law (I won’t say which one), big comfy slippers. Did she like
them? No, she didn’t. She later gave them to Ed, without batting an eye, with a
bunch of her other junk to sell at our yard sale. Really?
For
Ed, a tall model skeleton, like those you see in biology class. Ed likes kooky
stuff. I thought he’d enjoy moving the arms and legs like a puppeteer and
making up voices or whatever, I don’t know. He took one look at the skeleton
and said, “What the @#^$*’s this?”
For
my Dad, tickets to the Kimmel Center to see The
Color Purple. He complained that I shouldn’t have spent so much money. And
this wasn’t the “Aw shucks you shouldn’t have” type of complaining, it was the
“Young lady stop being a spendthrift” kind of complaining. Sigh. He really
enjoyed the show, though.
For
my boss, audiotapes of Laura Ingraham’s The
Obama Diaries, since he enjoyed criticizing President Obama. He never
listened to the tapes. I know because I asked, and he said, “Nah. She’s mean. She
doesn’t want to give the guy credit for anything.”
Yeah, I knew that, but I didn’t think
he knew (or cared). So much for
trying to meet people where they are (or where you think they are).
Christian
has invited me to go Christmas shopping later this week. Wish me luck!
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