Don’t know what to get your loved ones this holiday season?
Are you stumped about what constitutes an office appropriate gift? Maxed out
your credit cards and are now shopping in your house for the best re-gifting
options? Well, let me help you. Follow these fool-proof steps and you will be
sure to illicit tears of joy from your friends and family as they tear into
your very thoughtful and artfully wrapped present (Side note: I suggest that,
when at all possible, alcohol be consumed before and during the gift giving presentation,
by both giver and receiver. All gifts look 10 times better when viewed through
the bottom of a wine glass, or if you’re in the Christmas spirit, a brandy-imbued
glass of eggnog).
Chachkies: Remember that one time your grandmother told you she
liked snowmen? You know your aunt who likes to wear scarves sometimes? What
about your father who likes to play golf? Take these tid-bits of meaningless
information and run wild. Give your aunt so many scarves she can sew them together to make hot air balloon, fly away to the Land of Scarves, and become their queen. Make every present golf-centric so that your father eats, breaths, and thinks only golf, eventually just turning into a giant golf ball. Case in point, my grandmother now has so much snowman-related paraphernalia,
it looks as if we are getting ready to entomb her, Tutankhamen style, so that,
in the afterlife, she can be surrounded by an endless supply of pillows,
sweaters, candles, pens, coasters, puzzles, and a million other items that are
covered with white snowy men sporting top hats, carrot noses, and corn-cob
pipes. I myself have experienced this kind of theme-specific gift giving. It may
or may not be known that I am fond of cats. However, I think my “obsession”, as
some people are want to call it, is driven by the constant bestowal of feline
products. I am now no longer worried that I will become a Cat Lady but rather I’m
sure that every cat pin, cat memo pad, and cat salt-and-pepper-shaker-set is
driving me slowly insane. Much like my grandmother, I too will meet my maker
surrounded by cat products, just like the Egyptians would have wanted.
Consumables: This piece of gift-giving advice comes courtesy of my
father: Give people things they can “consume”, be it food or soap or mints or
lotion. A useful suggestion that I continue to use. However, my father takes it
to another level. Never one to skirt on quantity, my father has been known to
ship several boxes of wine home from a trip to Tuscany, or buy town cars so large
I’m sure you need a special limo driver’s license to pilot them. Our refrigerator is known to carry within not one, not two, but probably 10 blocks of various cheeses, each the size of a cement block. You get what I’m saying,
bigger is better. So it comes as no surprise that when running downstairs to
open our stockings, my siblings and I found plastic shopping bags underneath
the tree filled with giant 2-gallon bottles of Pantene Pro V, a six pack of Ban deodorant,
and enough gum to build yourself a little house to live in, like the witch from
Hansel and Gretel. Show people you care by giving them so many industrial sized
toiletry products that they could open their own kiosk in the mall. I find, the
more you give, the more you distract from the underlying message of the gift,
which is, you smell. Or, you could be like my sister and revel in the fact that
you don’t have to buy soap or shaving cream for the next 6 months.
Matchy-matchy: This gift is specific to the couples in your life.
It could be your parents, a set of brothers, your grandparents, or your nieces
and nephews all closely related in age. It has been a tradition in my family
that my grandparents would give my parents and my aunt and uncle matching
sweaters or dress-shirts. I adore this idea. I want my Christmas to look like a
well-costumed event with mandatory uniforms. Plus, you can insist the receiver IMMEDIATELY
try on their newly received pink wool pull-over or handsome blue and green checked
button-down cardigan. Time for pictures! My grandmother loved, loved, LOVED the
color pink. Mauve really was her favorite shade. It was a sentiment not shared
by my mother and aunt. Still, their willingness to don their matching sweater
vests really did remind me the true meaning of Christmas: do it with style. I,
of course, am exempt from this tradition. I am isolated on an island of age in my
family, separated by 10 years from my nearest older sibling and nearest younger
niece. Therefore, my family resorts to my first suggestion, i.e., cat kitsch.
Re-gifting: My favorite thing to re-gift is candles. I’m just not
interested in lighting things on fire in my house. I appreciate the idea, but
unless you host parties, which I do not, I don’t need tea candles and meltable
smelling wax in my kitchen. Plus, if you don’t use them, they collect dust in
at a rate I am sure is contrary to the laws of physics. But, for some reason,
most people have a little bit of pyromaniac in them. And this lust for waves of
hot perfumed apple, cinnamon, pumpkin, and cedar wood has birthed an ocean of
smells so great you might drown in your indecision over what candle
communicates “World’s Best Mother-In Law” . Yankee Candle is out of control. I
recently bought (I was out of candles to re-gift) some votive candles for a
friend and I was overwhelmed with the selection. Food and plant smells are
abundant, and expected, but more concerning are the non-tangible scents: Storm
Watch, Be Thankful, Drift Away, and, my favorite, Angel Wings. Angel Wings?! Who
is lighting cherubs on fire and then duplicating the smell?! If you’re unsure
on what scent most says “I Am a Valued Employee” to your boss, go for a
creative candle design. I have seen candles molded in every possible shape, from the Effile Tower to flying angles (again with burning cherubs) and even human body parts. Now
you can give a thoughtful, custom-made candle stick to your passive-aggressive
neighbor, the wax molded into the shape of their head. While others will see a
pleasant exchange between friends, you both know it’s a subtle warning: if I
have to tell you to turn down your Housewives of Beverly Hills Marathon one
more time, acts of arson will take place. Now go light your face on fire. Merry
Christmas!
Gift cards: To me, gift cards say so much, as in, they say exactly
how poor you are at that moment. I cannot give these because I spend all my
money on international travel….for myself. To give you a $5 dollar gift card to
Target is tantamount to me confessing “I am not a responsible adult and I spent
all my money on a three-day trip into the jungles of northern Thailand.” But,
if you want to share with everyone exactly how much of your tax return is still
left over from this past April, just go to the check-out of any grocery store and
load-up on Apple, Barnes&Nobles, and Dunkin Donuts plastic gift cards, redeemable for
the next calendar year at values of $10, $20 and $50 sums. I have to say, it
would make transporting your gifts much easier. As it is, I’m wondering how I
am going to stuff €100 worth of Italian candy and wine into my suitcase without
it breaking and melting en route. (Side note: I once bought a very expensive
box of Florentine chocolates as a present to give the mother of my then
boyfriend. I was POSITIVE this was the most thoughtful gift I could give and I
was sure I would be beloved for all time. However, when I finally gave her the box,
the candies had melted, probably because it was summer and I had forgotten the
chocolates in my bag, which I might have left in the car to bake in the sun,
for 3 hours. You can guess what kind of gooey horror she unwrapped. Did I
mention this was the first time I was meeting this woman? Things did not go
well from there…)
Jazz hands: So, I’m an opera singer. Not a professional one, but in
my head I tell myself I’m good enough to be in the chorus. The star of the chorus.
If I auditioned. Anyways, I have found that offering to sing and entertain
sometimes is the greatest gift of all. This mostly only works for my
grandmother, but my mother has also been known to shed a tear after I finish my aria.
Usually it’s after I sing a song from Madame Butterfly and my mother moans “Men
are awful!” (Side note: If you don’t know anything about opera, it’s mostly
powerful men doing terrible things to women who have no viable problem-solving
skills, and everyone is singing about it, for 4 hours.) But my penchant for
performing didn’t start with me. I give credit to my sister who once made my then
8 year-old-brother dress-up in a kimono so he could star alongside her in her
self-penned “Dating in Japan” on Christmas morning. I have sung at birthday parties,
family reunions, and, this year, I will reprise my one-woman opera spectacular
as I take the stage at my grandmother’s assisted-living care facility. So,
break out your xylophone, put on your tap shoes, and show-off your comedic
skills by insisting people listen to you monologue for 10 minutes about What’s The Deal With Airplane Food (I may have
just recently watched all of Jerry Seinfeld’s web series Comedians in Cars Getting
Coffee). And remember, there is no greater gift than the gift of forced audience
participation, God bless us everyone.
Happy Holidays!
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