It took far too long for little Kenny to reach the second stage of maturity, the stage that gratefully accepts gifts of need rather than want. (With space allotted for that category of gifts between "need" and "want"...call them..."weeds".) It can still, I'm ashamed to admit, be very easy to convince myself of the need of a want, and then let the weeds grow and grow until they're neck-high and choking me. But that second stage, which really took root in my twenties, in a way wasn't all that much better, because it was still focused on (a) stuff I (b) getting. At least at that age I was properly grateful for things like clothes. Little kids never want clothes. Big kids are ecstatic to get clothes. I was (and am) partial to comfy sweaters, the softer and warmer the better. But I can be made to grin ear-to-ear with a few pairs of MacGregor Happy Feet in my stocking. One of life's greatest little pleasures, for me, is the joy of putting on comfortable socks...and come Christmas each year I'm usually in need of new socks.
Hey, I'll take underwear, too. I seem to need them every year as well. There are an awful lot of deer around here. (I know I don't drive--sssshhh!)
Another Christmas standby is deodorant. The first time I got six sticks of B.O.-De-O in my stocking I thought somebody (we won't name any Evas) was trying to send me a message about my pungency or something. No...it wasn't that. It was that unscented deodorant was ON SALE!!! and so bingo! here's a year's worth in one go.
You have to understand that unoderated deodorant is barely a thing. SpeedStick makes one (most places don't bother to stock it) and if there are other varieties, I don't know of them. If I wear any other flavour of deodorant, it interacts with my sweat somehow to make me smell like a skunk that crawled up inside the ass of another skunk, died, and then fermented for a while in an old leaking garbage bin. So SpeedStick Unscented it is. And if you find it on sale, that's an ADD TO CART.
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The best gift I ever saw given was from my stepfather, John, to my mother. I don't remember the year--if I could remember the house I was in, that'd friggin' help--mid- to late-eighties, is all I can come up with. Doesn't matter. What I remember is that I had a veritable sleigh-load of stuff under that tree. Lots and lots and lots. John had his share of things, too. There were some things from me to my Mom, things from me to John, quite a few things from Mom to John. Nothing from John to his wife. Not a thing under that tree from him to her, and you could tell as the gifts were being distributed she was feeling a little...odd. I mean, of course he didn't forget Christmas, who could do that to the love of his life, and yet there was nothing, I mean NOTHING, under the tr--
Wait a minute. What's that...what's that thing under there at the back? Addressed to my mom, using his pet name for her. It was one of those gifts you can't disguise easily, and John hadn't bothered: long before she unwrapped it she knew it was--
a calendar.
You could see the emotions at war on her face. There was definitely something wrong here. I mean, a calendar? That's it? The question hovered there in her throat. You couldn't hear it, but you could see it, even smell it a little. She looked at her calendar. It said 'OUTHOUSES' on the front and had a picture of a country privy. Nice picture, in it's way, I guess, but--still, if we'd known the letters w-t-f could be put together in that order in 198-, I'm sure they would have been.
She opened the calendar.
Every month there was something taped in there designed to get her OUT of the HOUSE. Leafs tickets one month. Jays tickets another. Tickets to concerts, handwritten tickets for an outing of mini-golf, an IOU ONE PICNIC in August...that kind of thing.
From puzzled and confused to overwhelmed in about twenty seconds flat.
-----------
The best Christmas gifts I have ever been given...I have to divide this into pre-Eva and Eva eras just to keep it fair. Pre-Eva--honestly? It was also a calendar. THIS calendar had, written on each and every day of the year, a snippet of love song lyric with artist and song name, and every day under that it said "I love you". No song was repeated; only a few of hers and my favourite artists were. Every...single...day of the year. It was a leap year, too. I can't even imagine how much time it took Lynne to do that. Our love was snuffed out not even two years later, which just goes to show you that even the most heartfelt gift may go for nought in short order. But I have never forgotten it, and each time I think of it, I feel an echo of what I felt then: a species of a huge, all-encompassing affection.
The best Eva-presents...I just got one of them this week, those tickets to the Book of Mormon. I'm never going to forget that. The other thing that we got each other, home on Christmas Day 2006, was one Georgia-Peach that I find myself still missing quite a lot.
Really a lot. Yes, we got her for each other (and for Tux, too)--but let's face it, that dog was my dog.
Really, a lot.
---------------
This is maybe the first year I've gone beyond the stage of needs, or even weeds, and into a new stage where I would honestly prefer nothing material. I still have lots of socks thanks to a sock infusion in the summer; there have been a few less deer around here lately; I have lots of sweaters; I'm in good shape. Ask me what I want for Christmas, specify it has to be a thing, and it's going to take me a minute or two to think of something.
If you buy me things, of course I will be happy to get them. I got presents from a good friend last night and nearly cried at the thoughtfulness that went into them. They weren't big by any means but they were meaningful.
But even better than the meaningful gifts was the chance to spend meaningful time with a meaningful friend I care about. I've had more than my share of that over the past month, after several shameful months of feeling lost and forgotten, needy and greedy. I'm truly blessed with so many wonderful friends, and seeing them means so, so much.
I've reached the point in my life where Christmas really is all about other people, most specifically kids. We haven't decorated around here for years because (a) no room; (b) the aforementioned Peach would Peach the tree in no time at all; (c) the cats would do the same thing and frankly my (d)ear, I don't give a damn. Christmas is not and has never been about decorations, for me. Even as a kid, a tree was just the thing the presents went under (and remember, back then it was all about those presents...they could have been stored in and dispensed from the bathroom, for all I cared). Putting up the tree, spraying that fake snow on the windows, . forcing my hands to string popcorn and cranberries--all of those things that make everyone else feel all festive just make me feel like ugh, work.
Bur it means a lot to other people. Especially children. So this year we have donated our tree-in-a-box (a blue spruce, natch) to Eva's mom, at whose place we'll all be on Christmas Day, watching two-going-on-twelve Alexa oohing and aahhing over the freshly decked halls. The thought of that brings back a fair bit of Christmas cheer.
This is also the first Christmas season in a great long time that I haven't had to concern myself with matters of retail, and what a blessed relief THAT is. I don't have to try and gauge eggnog sales ever again. (They go down a little every year, but how much is a crapshoot and you'd better have stock right up until close on Christmas Eve--after which point anything you have is essentially garbage.
I don't have to wonder why, year after year after year, huge distributions of product would come in, all for a week that was ultimately not much busier than a normal week (albeit closed one day and may as well be closed another.) I don't have to deal with people wondering why we're closed early on December 24th (and yes, people actually ask, every year, if we're open Christmas Day: trust me, it's coming, because people in retail are not human and do not have families and most certainly do not deserve their Christmas too.)
That is yet another of the priceless gifts of Christmas. As we head into the homestretch--I can hear Santa limbering up--try to remember, in the midst of Stressember, that Christmas itself is a gift, whether you are Christian or not.
Hey, I'll take underwear, too. I seem to need them every year as well. There are an awful lot of deer around here. (I know I don't drive--sssshhh!)
Another Christmas standby is deodorant. The first time I got six sticks of B.O.-De-O in my stocking I thought somebody (we won't name any Evas) was trying to send me a message about my pungency or something. No...it wasn't that. It was that unscented deodorant was ON SALE!!! and so bingo! here's a year's worth in one go.
You have to understand that unoderated deodorant is barely a thing. SpeedStick makes one (most places don't bother to stock it) and if there are other varieties, I don't know of them. If I wear any other flavour of deodorant, it interacts with my sweat somehow to make me smell like a skunk that crawled up inside the ass of another skunk, died, and then fermented for a while in an old leaking garbage bin. So SpeedStick Unscented it is. And if you find it on sale, that's an ADD TO CART.
-----------
The best gift I ever saw given was from my stepfather, John, to my mother. I don't remember the year--if I could remember the house I was in, that'd friggin' help--mid- to late-eighties, is all I can come up with. Doesn't matter. What I remember is that I had a veritable sleigh-load of stuff under that tree. Lots and lots and lots. John had his share of things, too. There were some things from me to my Mom, things from me to John, quite a few things from Mom to John. Nothing from John to his wife. Not a thing under that tree from him to her, and you could tell as the gifts were being distributed she was feeling a little...odd. I mean, of course he didn't forget Christmas, who could do that to the love of his life, and yet there was nothing, I mean NOTHING, under the tr--
Wait a minute. What's that...what's that thing under there at the back? Addressed to my mom, using his pet name for her. It was one of those gifts you can't disguise easily, and John hadn't bothered: long before she unwrapped it she knew it was--
a calendar.
You could see the emotions at war on her face. There was definitely something wrong here. I mean, a calendar? That's it? The question hovered there in her throat. You couldn't hear it, but you could see it, even smell it a little. She looked at her calendar. It said 'OUTHOUSES' on the front and had a picture of a country privy. Nice picture, in it's way, I guess, but--still, if we'd known the letters w-t-f could be put together in that order in 198-, I'm sure they would have been.
She opened the calendar.
Every month there was something taped in there designed to get her OUT of the HOUSE. Leafs tickets one month. Jays tickets another. Tickets to concerts, handwritten tickets for an outing of mini-golf, an IOU ONE PICNIC in August...that kind of thing.
From puzzled and confused to overwhelmed in about twenty seconds flat.
-----------
The best Christmas gifts I have ever been given...I have to divide this into pre-Eva and Eva eras just to keep it fair. Pre-Eva--honestly? It was also a calendar. THIS calendar had, written on each and every day of the year, a snippet of love song lyric with artist and song name, and every day under that it said "I love you". No song was repeated; only a few of hers and my favourite artists were. Every...single...day of the year. It was a leap year, too. I can't even imagine how much time it took Lynne to do that. Our love was snuffed out not even two years later, which just goes to show you that even the most heartfelt gift may go for nought in short order. But I have never forgotten it, and each time I think of it, I feel an echo of what I felt then: a species of a huge, all-encompassing affection.
The best Eva-presents...I just got one of them this week, those tickets to the Book of Mormon. I'm never going to forget that. The other thing that we got each other, home on Christmas Day 2006, was one Georgia-Peach that I find myself still missing quite a lot.
Really a lot. Yes, we got her for each other (and for Tux, too)--but let's face it, that dog was my dog.
Really, a lot.
---------------
This is maybe the first year I've gone beyond the stage of needs, or even weeds, and into a new stage where I would honestly prefer nothing material. I still have lots of socks thanks to a sock infusion in the summer; there have been a few less deer around here lately; I have lots of sweaters; I'm in good shape. Ask me what I want for Christmas, specify it has to be a thing, and it's going to take me a minute or two to think of something.
If you buy me things, of course I will be happy to get them. I got presents from a good friend last night and nearly cried at the thoughtfulness that went into them. They weren't big by any means but they were meaningful.
But even better than the meaningful gifts was the chance to spend meaningful time with a meaningful friend I care about. I've had more than my share of that over the past month, after several shameful months of feeling lost and forgotten, needy and greedy. I'm truly blessed with so many wonderful friends, and seeing them means so, so much.
I've reached the point in my life where Christmas really is all about other people, most specifically kids. We haven't decorated around here for years because (a) no room; (b) the aforementioned Peach would Peach the tree in no time at all; (c) the cats would do the same thing and frankly my (d)ear, I don't give a damn. Christmas is not and has never been about decorations, for me. Even as a kid, a tree was just the thing the presents went under (and remember, back then it was all about those presents...they could have been stored in and dispensed from the bathroom, for all I cared). Putting up the tree, spraying that fake snow on the windows, . forcing my hands to string popcorn and cranberries--all of those things that make everyone else feel all festive just make me feel like ugh, work.
Bur it means a lot to other people. Especially children. So this year we have donated our tree-in-a-box (a blue spruce, natch) to Eva's mom, at whose place we'll all be on Christmas Day, watching two-going-on-twelve Alexa oohing and aahhing over the freshly decked halls. The thought of that brings back a fair bit of Christmas cheer.
This is also the first Christmas season in a great long time that I haven't had to concern myself with matters of retail, and what a blessed relief THAT is. I don't have to try and gauge eggnog sales ever again. (They go down a little every year, but how much is a crapshoot and you'd better have stock right up until close on Christmas Eve--after which point anything you have is essentially garbage.
I don't have to wonder why, year after year after year, huge distributions of product would come in, all for a week that was ultimately not much busier than a normal week (albeit closed one day and may as well be closed another.) I don't have to deal with people wondering why we're closed early on December 24th (and yes, people actually ask, every year, if we're open Christmas Day: trust me, it's coming, because people in retail are not human and do not have families and most certainly do not deserve their Christmas too.)
That is yet another of the priceless gifts of Christmas. As we head into the homestretch--I can hear Santa limbering up--try to remember, in the midst of Stressember, that Christmas itself is a gift, whether you are Christian or not.
2 comments:
Well said.
Merry Christmas to you and yours my friend!
This is lovely. Merry Christmas!
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