Bearing Gifts

Because I was spoiled by my father as a child, and because my mother bought me something after every one of her drunken benders, I’m hard to buy gifts for. Gifts are not merely a nicety between loved ones on special occasions, they’re an indication of how much you love me or of how much it’ll cost before I forgive you. When my new boyfriend asked me what I’d like for Christmas, I told him that he could either spend hours agonizing over what to get me and then wait anxiously to see if I’m devastated or thrilled with his choice, or he can give me something I can return for something I want. Best of all, I said, is to give me something he likes. At least that way someone will enjoy it.

But really, how does one buy gifts for anyone these days when we all have two of everything we ever wanted? We live in Instant Gratification World. If I want something, I just go get it, and it’s usually not candles so smelly that they make my nose itch, nor is it bath products that make the water form into a geyser with little dancing fairies on top.

Not that I don’t appreciate consumable gifts. At least one can make them go away. If one doesn’t use them oneself, one can regift them to that unsuspecting acquaintance at the office who passes out jars of her home-made pickled bananas every Christmas. My Aunt Linda just loves those. She lets out an excited little squeak every time she unwraps a jar. There are certain consumable gifts that I just can’t get enough of, like gift certificates for pedicures, or for any other service which takes place in a spa. A brazilian wax might be a bit off-side, though — besides which, I take care of that the old-fashioned way: with a razor.

We all just have too much crap. I don’t want any more. The clutter bothers me. It makes me feel confined, tied down when I want to be free. In a market glutted with consumer goods manufactured in China for next to nothing, we all have more fashion accessories and kitschy ornaments than we could ever have dreamed of owning a decade ago. How many beaded evening bags does one person need? None, actually, because who goes out anymore? And how many silver-plated pasta servers is one too many? I’ll tell you: it’s one, because the one I received as a gift seven years ago sits in my kitchen drawer, black with tarnish, never used. Maybe I’ll polish it up and give it to someone I love like know this Christmas. Really, someone should invent a generic sort of gift that one is supposed to unwrap, admire, and then immediately pass on. It could go round and round among friends, briefly loved by all, and reducing the amount of crap in landfills. The "Environmentally Friendly Regift." It could be a jar of pickled bananas.

I always appreciate getting gag gifts, because rather than imploring me to wear them with pride or display them prominently on my mantle they merely hope to give me a few moments’ amusement. For this reason, they often end up displayed on my mantle (if not worn). The gold-and-green-and-red glitter-covered moneycat I got as a wedding gift enjoyed a place of pride in my home for the six years of my marriage, and my husband and I included it in the division of property when we drew up our separation agreement. I agreed to let him take it, but I still miss it a little.

I like giving gag gifts, too. A couple of friends of mine have a suburban backyard farm. They started with five cats and a couple of dogs, and then began taking in foster-rabbits. They planted vegetables. They got some chickens. A pot-bellied pig followed. Christmas shopping one year, I spotted a fat green ceramic chicken and had to get it for them, but it was just too ridiculous to part with, and I ended up keeping it. It’s perched atop one of my speakers in the living room. Whenever I look at it, I think of them.

My dad was the best gift giver, if a little extravagant. I’ll never forget the $100 clock radio when I turned 14. In 1978. On my 20th birthday, when I was living in Ottawa, he FedExed me a fresh B.C. salmon. I complained that since he’d failed to include the barbeque, I would have to bake it in the oven, and I described the spinach and pine nut dressing I was going to stuff it with. Sounds great, he said. Well, come on over, I said. A couple of days later he showed up at my apartment door. The salmon was gone by then, so he took us all to his friend’s Turkish restaurant, and we drank Ouzo into the wee hours of the morning. One of those little table-top gas barbeques arrived in the mail the following year on my birthday.

The worst present I ever got was a posthumous gift from my stepmother. My father only lived another seven years after sending off that gas barbeque, and when he died, he left all his assets to his second wife. She remained a part of our lives, and every year on Christmas and on birthdays, she gave us gifts she’d found at garage sales. She died fourteen years after my father, leaving the house they had built to her sister. She’d pre-paid a videographer to record her funeral for posterity, and we all got a copy of that. I think I recorded The Larry Sanders Show over top of it.

What I really, really, really want:

A palm-like device that’s a mini-pc with an MP3 player, a phone, a voice recorder, GPS, internet, email, and tivo/pay-per-view account. I want it to have all the computer software that I use now, with on-line storage for all my data so that I don’t have to own another computer, and access through two or more networks, so that I’m never locked out. I want a bunch of peripherals that sync with it: an LCD monitor (living room and office); a keyboard (a folding one, or one of those projection thingys); a sound system. I want everyone else to have one of these, too, so that everywhere I go, I can plug into the existing peripherals and shop, work, dance or surf porn. I want to be able to wear this device on a chain around my neck, or have it physically implanted into my body. I would consider replacing one of my ribs with it. Who needs all those ribs, anyway? I want to be free.

What do you want for Christmas?