OK. I found something worse then the holiday cards. It’s the gifts. Believe me, I love getting and giving gifts. We all know the joy of finding the right gift for someone. The ‘that’s it!’ feeling when the perfect item is discovered for the toughest person on your list.
Of course there are always the easy people on the list. The people with personality dominating hobbies are always the ones that are no problem to shop for at all. The motorcycle enthusiast is always thrilled when you buy them anything with the word Harley. It could be a t-shirt, hat, knife, jock strap, pregnancy test… if it says Harley on the side of the box, they are content. The sports nut is the same too. Give a Red Sox fan a five year old rotting fruit cake in a box that says Carl Yastrzemski on the outside of it and they are in heaven. Golfers, politic junkies, drinkers, heavy metal fans… are all easy to pick gifts for.
Gift giving gets harder for the everyday average people in your life. The co-workers and friends with generic personalities are really tough to buy for. The people that seem to have everything are even harder. Gift giving is normally a blast, but if you cannot find a gift that seems at all appropriate, it just causes stress when they are opening your present. Usually people are polite and say they love it, but you can tell in their eyes when they are being polite and already plotting a regrifting or Goodwill donation before they have finished unwrapping it.
When I was about 10, I remember opening up a wrapped deck of Snoopy playing cards in front of a large group of my parents friends and thinking to myself that surely someone had accidentally put my name on the wrong gift. I worried how embarrassed the giver will be when they stop me to in order to give the real recipient the cards and hand me my real present. Needless to say, no one spoke up and I had to thank the Peshkins for my lovely gift. Fact is, they were really just acquaintances of my folks and it really was a very nice gesture for them to even think of giving me a gift, but in my 10-year-old brain I was very concerned.
I have had that feeling many other times in my life. You get far enough into unwrapping the present and you see that it so opposite of anything you would have any desire to own, that you wonder if the giver knows anything about you. Did someone switch the ‘to and from’ tag? Will the giver jump up and say ‘oh I’m so so sorry’? Unfortunately, no one has ever stopped me. Usually I just have to end up having to look excited about getting a combination purple shoehorn/shrimp devainer and matching ascot set.
My co-workers and I exchanged holiday gifts this morning after we had brunch together. I think they all know me all too well because I received a ‘mock-u’ talking monkey toy, a choke-your chicken toy and a recording tape measure. Everyone acted grateful when they opened up my presents but I will have to spy on the white elephant parties they attend next year to see if they appreciated the gifts I gave.
snoopy card
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