I am happy to report that, unless someone who wasn’t on my list suddenly wins the lottery or comes into a large inheritance, my Christmas shopping is completed.
I’m sort of ambivalent about Christmas shopping. There are those who love it and those who hate it and I generally fall somewhere between those poles.
People of my generation — the tail end of the Baby Boomers — will tell you that Christmas shopping today is far easier than it was back in the olden days. There are more places to shop, a greater variety of gifts and, perhaps most important, internet shopping. In my youth, all we had was a few department stores, a couple hardware stores and the Sears catalog.
Today, the whole world of retail is at our fingertips.
In the olden days, when you were stumped about what to buy for someone, you could give them cash, which to me always seemed an admission of failure. Today, you can give them gift cards for just about every place that sells goods or services. It’s a little better than admitting you simply gave up. You’re saying, instead, “I know you’ll enjoy this restaurant or store or service.” It demonstrates that you gave at least a minimal amount of thought as to what that person might like.
But as a rule, I avoid gift cards or cash as Christmas gifts. I want people on my list to know that I put some real thought into their presents. The expression “it’s the thought that counts” still resonates with me.
With that in mind, there is one aspect of Christmas gift giving that has not improved with time: gift-wrapping.
I hate wrapping gifts, and it shows. I’m almost always miscalculating how much gift-wrap is needed to wrap a present, which often means I’m piece-mealing wrapping paper to cover an exposed area of the gift or using an excessive amount of paper. My lines are not straight. There are crinkles and uneven corners. They are a mess. It looks like the gift has been run over by a hay-bailer.
Some people I know are gifted gift-wrappers, whose lines are crisp and perfectly symmetrical. They incorporate elaborate ribbons and bows and all sorts of flourishes that make their gifts suitable for the cover of a glossy magazine.
You can take this too far, though.
If it’s not too offensive a comparison, beautiful, extravagant wrapping is like provocative lingerie — no matter how eagerly you anticipate what’s inside, it seems a shame to discard the decorations so quickly.
No one is torn by those competing sentiments with the presents I give.
In the olden days, those afflicted with terrible gift-wrapping skills could have their gifts wrapped at the department store where the purchases were made, free of charge, too. In the era of the shopping mall, local charities and organizations like Girls Scouts set up gift-wrapping stations where you could have the gifts wrapped for a minimal charge, the proceeds going to the charity or organization’s work, a win-win situation if there ever was one. Now, as far as I know, we are on our own.
There is one advance in gift-wrapping that has emerged in recent decades: the gift bag. The appeal is obvious: no measuring, now cutting, no mess.
But no effort, either.
Stuffing your gift in a bag with a few sheets of tissue paper is the easy way out. Where is the imagination? The thought? The sacrifice? The suffering?
No thanks. I’m determined to go the distance. This is no time to give in or give up.
So sometime soon — not today, though — I’ll assemble the wrapping paper, the scotch tape, the scissors and bows and face the grim task at hand.
I am firmly resolved that when the people on my Christmas list unwrap presents that look as though they were wrapped by an elephant on acid, they will know how very much I care.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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