*Because this is a post about gifts, I’m dedicating it to a kid who was in my fifth grade class named Aaron Polk. I just remembered he made me the most fire mix CD that year. Wherever you may be, thank you.*
I. Love. Christmas. Christmas isn’t just one day to me, it’s a culture. An event. I could seriously write separate posts about all the things I love about it. The elements are infinite! It’s my absolute favorite holiday and the most wonderful time of the year. Cliche, I know, but what beats an extended break from school, Christmas trees, lights and decorations, the music (because “Silver Bells” is the best and SO underrated. Don’t judge me), the movies (Home Alone 2 and The Santa Clause 2 are far better than their predecessors, not up for debate), the food, family, friends, love, cheer and if you’re lucky, snow? All happening at the same time? Nothing. That’s what.
It’s the little things, too. For NBA fans like myself, it’s opening presents and eating and watching games all day. It’s also the special individual memories everyone holds. My sister got a camcorder for Christmas one year and I still love watching home videos from Christmas 2002 when I manage to dig the VCR out. It’s the commercials. Oh. My. Goodness. I love Christmas commercials! The feeling of joy that happens when you see and hear the Hershey’s Kisses playing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” for the first time during the season? That soothing feeling I get from the Corona commercial where the palm tree lights up while “O, Christmas Tree” whistles in the background? The Campbell’s Soup one where the kid transforms from a snowman back to human form once he goes inside and takes a bite of soup? There’s nothing like it! And the fact that all of this occurs for roughly two months and not just one single day like other holidays such as Thanksgiving and Easter makes it even better.
But being the stereotypical superficial and consumerist American I am, my absolute favorite part about Christmas has got to be the gifts. I know I probably sound like a bad Christian for not choosing Jesus, but that’s a given. I celebrate Him everyday and I’m more than aware that Jesus is the reason for the season. Besides, if you want to get technical, Jesus was a gift; the gift of eternal life. You can’t beat that! So there, I love gifts. Giving and receiving. My parents, who I once believed were Santa Clause, always found a way to get whatever me and my sister wanted for Christmas. Nothing compared to waking up on Christmas morning and seeing all of the things we had written to the “North Pole” for. Things like my Barbie Beach Bungalow House that had the pool on the top deck that had a pump so you could turn it into a Jacuzzi if you wanted to. My Lite Brite that would start smoking if I left it plugged in too long. My Bratz Styling head, whose hair I tried to cut into a chic bob once that resulted in an uneven mess which I was sure would magically grow back one day, never minding the fact that she was an inanimate object. For someone who typically hates surprises, unwrapping a present is one of my favorite things. The charm and mystery in playing “ooooh, what’d ya get me” is so much fun and never gets old.
While I love receiving gifts, I’ve realized that I’m a bad gift giver. Like that time I got my cousin a $10 gift card to Rue 21 and she looked at it and said “$10?! What am I supposed to do with that!” Okay, looking back $10 was a ridiculous amount to give. Rue 21 is cheap, but not that cheap. She still didn’t have to react that way, though. Tacky! Then there was that time I gave my mom and sister some notepads I made in my desktop publishing class senior year of high school. Or that time I ordered my sister a hideous phone case from China with quotes from The Fault in Our Stars scribbled all over it. She reacted with that forced smile and “awww, thanks” combo that you give someone when you receive something you don’t really care for, the same reaction that I learned to master at an early age. However, the combination of being a bad gift giver and receiving bad gifts over the years has made me a more appreciative person. Let me explain.
I was a Girl Scout from second to fifth grade, which is the reason I use to justify my purchasing of their cookies every year in order to hide the fact that I’m just being a big fatty. Let me be as I support my tribe. Anyway, one year our troop did what I guess you could call a Secret Santa. Each person brought a wrapped gift to our meeting and sat it on a table. One by one we got up and chose any present we wished. I chose a square box that was solid and weighty. I don’t remember what I thought it was, but I just knew that I had chosen the best gift there. After everyone had chosen a gift, we all unwrapped them at the same time. What I unwrapped turned out to be a bell in the shape of Noah’s Ark with all of the animals spewing out the top of the ark. A bell. A ringing bell.
Being the classy 8-year-old I was at the time, I immediately declared (in the same fashion as my tacky cousin mentioned earlier) something like “what is this?! A bell! What am I supposed to do with this?!” To make matters worse, we never shared what each person was responsible for bringing, so that meant I was openly dissing someone’s gift right in front of them. I looked across the room and saw the “girl, if you don’t shut up right now” look on my mother’s face and decided to be quiet and watch in agony as the other girls played with the dolls, makeup sets, dress up shoes, and art kits they had chosen.
When we got home that night, my mother told me to never ever behave that way in public again and to always appreciate any thing that anybody ever gives me, no matter how much I don’t like it. And from that point on, that’s what I’ve done. I guess the way my cousin reacted to that Rue 21 gift card was karma for the way I reacted to that bell. Being a bad gift giver and receiver has caused me to humbly accept bad gifts like:
Nail Strengthener – Before my grandmother officially retired a few years ago, she would sit part of the day and care for an elderly lady whose daughter would be gone to work. On Christmas Eve night a couple of years ago, the lady’s daughter dropped off my grandmother’s Christmas present and also presents for me and my sister. She handed me a small red, velvet box which inside had something wrapped in gold, glittery tissue paper. I was thinking “oh, this is probably a nice pair of earrings. How lovely.” I unwrapped it to find a single bottle of nail strengthener. Not polish or a set complete with base and top coats or anything like that, just strengthener. I smiled and said thank you because it was the thought that counted.
Yahtzee – When I was probably 7 or 8, my aunt got me Yahtzee. It was like, forget Chutes and Ladders or Candy Land, I’m going to get this kid Yahtzee. Does anybody even really know how to play Yahtzee? I never took the time to learn how to play, but instead would randomly take the cup out and rattle the dice around in it for fun (I’ve always been easily entertained). I think this was the same year she gave my sister Chinese Checkers, another board game kids don’t care about. I shut my mouth and accepted it, though, because she didn’t have to give me anything at all.
Car Visor Clip – When I was about 14 or 15, my other grandmother (not the one with ties to the nail strengthener lady) gave all the granddaughters in the family car visor clips in the shape of a guardian angel who held a sign that read “GRANDDAUGHTER, PLEASE DRIVE SAFELY.” I didn’t even have a license yet, let alone a car, so the gift was pretty useless at the time. She even gave my youngest cousin one, who was probably 10 at the time. What was she going to do with it? Stick it on her bike spokes? I ended up putting mine in my mom’s car, ignoring the fact that she was a daughter-in-law and not a granddaughter, until I got a car of my own. Another thing that makes this a semi-bad gift is that she gave it twice. A couple of years later when I did have my own car, she gave all of us the same clip again. She’s gotten understandably forgetful in her older age, so I didn’t have the heart to tell her she had already gifted it once. So for a short time I had two guardian angels in my car, one on each visor. I’m down to one now, though, because the other flew off somewhere (no pun intended) and I’ve yet to find it.
*We believe these clips hold some sort of special power. My sister claims that every time hers slips off, she almost has a wreck. Coincidence? I think not.
A Used Journal – I’ve loved to write all of my life, so gifts relating to stationary in any form have always worked for me. So in middle school, one of my best friends at the time gave me a journal after we decided to exchange gifts for Christmas. Too bad the journal was one I had seen them write in numerous times and when I opened it, several of the used pages had been ripped out. I wasn’t that messed up that the gift was used (even though that did kind of suck), it was the fact that I had actually spent (my parents’) money on them. Had I known, I would’ve ripped out the used pages of the 88 cent composition notebook that I always carried around back then and gifted it to them. Merry Christmas!
A Gift Bag Full of Bootleg DVDs – One Sunday after church, one of our ushers handed my sister a green bag with “Merry Christmas” written on it in pretty, glittery, gold lettering and said, “share this with your sister.” Turns out the gift bag was full of bootleg DVDs of movies that were still in theaters or had yet to have been released on video. Wait. Maybe this gift wasn’t so bad after all. Free (illegal) movies. I like movies. Hm.
If all else fails, simply give the gift of love this holiday season.
X’s and O’s and Merry Christmas,
JF
*Romans 6:23.
Black Girls Who Use Urban Dictionary 