About Gifts

Here is one of the best gifts ever. It did not come at Christmas, but sometime, just because. My best friend, Marie, gave me this orchid several years ago because she knew I love orchids and care for them with love and attention. This magnificent one now blooms twice a year and delights me over and over. To me, this orchid is the perfect gift: it was given with love, not to mark any particular moment or holiday, and she knew I would love it. She was right.

We have come to the end of this American holiday season when we all go into paroxysms of guilt and longing for the perfect gift for everyone. We spend too much on crap. The wrappings have been torn off, and most of the stuff hidden under those amazing, colorful, carbon emitting, and costly wrappings have long been assigned to the back of the closet, or exchanged for something we really wanted, and in the right size.

I do this too. I make my to-give list for family and friends, and I send stuff off to them. I do not want them to think me churlish or ungiving. I want them to think well of me (maybe).

Some people are extraordinary gift givers, and they love the opportunity! I think of my sister, Maria, who listens in July when I say to her that what I really would like is a statue of St. Francis for my garden. So, at Hannukah, this perfect statue appears! I think of my sister-in-law, Nancy, who knows I love those certain pears, sends them at Christmas. I think of my daughter who makes home-made items I love - and give them to us at Christmas. Why Christmas?

What are REAL gifts?  We don't really know how to ask for what we want! When you'd really like some cash to pay a baby sitter, you get a hand cream dispenser. When you'd really like some cash to pay for car repairs you get a hood for your snow-blower. When you'd really like some some help with computer issues, you get hand-made soap.

Dear Abby is full of folks complaining about the lack of thanks for these things. I kind of know where they are coming from. Yeah, no one thanks anyone anymore, and momentarily I think that nevermore will I send this or that for the dutiful Christmas gift, since it seems they don't care. (neither do I!)

I have made donations to Heifer in the name of giving those folks a hive of bees or a goat to make a difference in the third world. But whatever it is - goats, bees, a new bike, big part of a tuition for college, checks, keyboard, it's all the same- just stuff. So, now I just send my donations to these organizations straight. You just do what you do because it is the right thing to do.

So, I come back to gift giving. Why are we so consumed with this during the holidays?

I have many friends with whom I do not exchange gifts, cards, or anything for the holidays. And yet, we would do anything for each other!

At Christmas, for the first time away from home in fifty years, we were with our son and young family in their home. The amount of gifts under the tree was prodigious! I was particularly amazed with the expensive gifts of clothing and small electric things the outlying family gave to each other. Lots of this was probably stuff they needed. But I could not help thinking about their credit card debt for all this loot! I was warmed by the total caring and attention these folks had for each other. I have a lot to learn!

Giving in the holiday season is an affirmation of being a consumer. My partner, in his quiet way, does not participate in Christmas. He knows that I will do the minimum to keep the troops quiet. Sometimes in the heeby-jeebies of the night I wish he would give me a gift of something he thought I would love, something inviting that I didn't have to tell him. But he gives me the gift of self. What more could anyone want?