I’m crap at Christmas
presents. Well, that’s not exactly true. I actually enjoy buying stuff for
people. It satisfies my second-X-chromosome connected need to shop, neatly
combining it with my equally second-X-chromosome-connected need to please other
people. And I delight in finding gifts that match my friends and family, I really
do. There’s a kind of creative satisfaction in it. Don’t ever get me started on
the whole ‘just give them a gift card’ copout… which is only marginally better
than the ‘ask them what they want’ scenario. And as for the ‘go buy yourself
something and I’ll wrap it’ shirk… Pffft…
But that’s a whole other story, what I want to tell you about are the
two ways that I’m crap at Christmas presents.
The first of my
Christmas gifting fails is due to the fact that I’m not a last-minute-impulse
gift buyer. I’m a yearlong purchaser-hoarder. Whenever I see something that I
think will be just right for X, I get it right then and there. And then I stash
it away and forget what the hell I’ve already bought… and I go on squirreling merrily
away until some time in late November, when I spread out the plunder and start
the annual pre-Christmas-wrapping self-flagellation ritual.
Really? Is she really
going to like that?
Am I thinking that’s
perfect for him because I’ve already given him one of those?
Is this enough?
Is that too much?
Should I swap that for
a blue one?
You know how it goes.
And it goes on and on and on until I finally bite the bullet and begin the
annual Christmas-wrapping ritual —which involves lots of tinsel and glittering,
colour-coordinated ribboning and black-and-white movie watching. Very
therapeutic.
Once everything’s
wrapped, the panic subsides… Sort of.
The second way I’m
absolutely crap at Christmas presents is very closely allied to the first way
I’m crap at Christmas presents. You see, because I have this stockpile of great
stuff that they’re gonna just love, it’s as if I have
premature-gift-ejaculation-syndrome.
If, at any time …any
time at all… not birthday, not holidays, not any damn special celebration of
even the most miniscule kind… if I happen to spend time with this person and
they even kind of sort of maybe vaguely hint at something that kind of sort of
maybe reminds me of the thing I have amassed in my hoard, I’ll go get it and
give it to them right away. Yep. I just hand it over with a stupid grin and
it’s all over. In an instant.
I don’t think I’m Robinson
Crusoe here. There must be others who share my Christmas-crappiness and there
probably isn’t a double-X chromosome bearing human being alive who doesn’t experience
some sort of anxiety about the whole festive season thing. That’s why champagne
and chocolate were invented, right?
