True Meanings
One thing I really like to do at Christmastime is make my list. And Kevin's. And Stevie's, too.
At my age, making a list is pretty stupid because most of the people who buy me presents don't buy me presents anymore. For instance, my mom and Dave buy for grandkids only. My dad usually buys something, but he never pays heed to lists. Same for my grandmother, who further claims that she isn't buying for anyone this year save for her growing brood of great-grandsons (6 this year, up from a mere 3 last Christmas!). Ted always buys us too much, but he usually follows a theme of some sort. He decked me out with "bar" stuff a couple of years ago. This year, who knows what he'll buy? The only people who really buy for Kevin and me are Kev's parents. My mother-in-law LOVES Christmas and loves to splurge and, thankfully, loves to splurge on adult children, too. So, mostly, the list is for them.
So what did I ask for for myself? Quilt store gift certificates and Smartwool sox. That's pretty much it. I put the same things on Kevin's list as I always do--Levi's 501s and Carhartts, size 32 X 34; wool sox, interesting wood. Our "team" list is more extensive. This is partially because we don't buy for each other as we share all incoming funds and can usually take care of our own individual gifting needs--such as fabric and cheap tools. And we hate buying electronics for ourselves, so at least one electronic thing usually ends up on our co-list. Last year we got XM radio. This year we're either putting a dishwasher or a digital camera on the list. Not sure yet.
Our #1 most-wanted item is new tile for the kitchen floor. Our kitchen is large and the tile we want is $2.25 a square foot. It will cost about $1000 to do the entire floor. We figured we could ask for tile, see how much we get, and fill in the rest, much like more conventional couples do when they register for china and such. This gives interested parties the opportunity to spend as little as $2.25 or as much as $1,000! On us! Isn't that wonderfully thoughtful and oh so flexible? Of us?!
This all sounds OUTRAGEOUS, I'm sure, but it's within the bounds of what other people have established. Christmas lists are always a tricky thing, given their intrinsic gimme nature, but the fact is that people are going to buy us stuff, just as we are going to buy/make stuff for them, and we're all pretty practical Midwesterners who figure that if you're going to spend money you might as well spend it on things people want and need rather than on stupid tripe like overpriced "past, present, and future" diamond necklaces, and--ew--clothing, and stuff you already have. I must admit to being a bit annoyed when people don't have their list ready when I'm ready to buy stuff. That would include everyone this year. Fine--no problem. Just remember that I'm not quite as charitable to those who annoy me. . . .
Stevie's list is a masterpiece. He checks out the Sunday circulars and the toy catalogs that we get that we never asked for, cuts out those items that are most desirable, and--at my request--tapes them into a notebook. This gives the gift-givers, of which there are MANY, not only a picture and catalog number and price and, at times, coupon of the items he likes, but a good general picture of the KINDS of things he wants, so they can feel relatively confident of substituting those goods that can't be found.
And it's hilarious to see what he cuts out. Gender stereotypes, activate! He skips over all the "girl" pages and thankfully, many of the electronics pages, and heads straight for the building toys. His few notebook pages are packed with anything and everything Legos and Star Wars, but almost always it's the dark side of those toys--Knight's Kingdom Legos and evil droid-form Bionicles and anything with a dark and busy box cover. I don't get the covers of boy's toys. The design concept is so totally bewildering, so mystifying, so out-of-proportion that I stand in the aisles holding the box, reading the words upon it, and still wonder, often aloud "What the hell IS this thing?!"
Whatever it is, Stevie would like it, please. I bought him the Knight's Kingdom Legos, and some Magnetix, and a microscope. He's taped many more such items in his notebook-of-want, along with some rather peculiar things. For instance, for the second year in a row he has cut out the pink "tower of puppies" from the Lillian Vernon catalog, along with the New! Kitty Tower that he says I can have. He also cut out a fuzzy hive of bees with numbers on the various beehive holes. That's for Mark. And he also cut out something for his Uncle Ted which I will reluctantly buy because I have been unable to find it cheaper elsewhere and the notion that my sweet 5-year old chose several appropriate items for other people is too damn adorable to ignore. THAT is the spirit of Christmas, my friends!
So anyway, there you have it. What are WE getting for others? Kevin abhors the holidays although he does nothing but profit from them in the form of copious gifts and food he didn't have to cook, so we've agreed to increase the quantity of homemade items to cut down on the commercialism. Don't be fooled, though--it's not necessarily cheaper to make stuff, especially if you're making bowls with teakwood and ebony and quilts with fabric that generally runs $9.00 a yard. Raw ingredients are still purchased goods, and it all adds up! But there is something to be said for giving something handmade. And, honestly, giving IS the best part of the whole holiday. I enjoy the stuff, but I much prefer watching someone else open a quilt that I spent dozens or even hundreds of hours working on, or even something that I bought that turned out to be just The Thing, and presented in a joyously wrapped package. I love wrapping.
God I'm domestic.
Thoughts on this process? I'm always interested to hear what people have to say about their gift-giving/receiving traditions. Always have I talked of changing the whole concept of the holiday--keeping it, mind you, but changing it--so that it is focused solely on giving. I guess it pretty much is, save for those folks who really want to buy us stuff and want to know what we want/need.
I believe there's an achievable balance for the kiddies. I want my kids to experience the joy of giving AND receiving! Just like I'm not going to send them around on Halloween collecting pennies for UNICEF without collecting candy, too, I don't expect them to spend their Christmas Eve in a soup kitchen and be perfectly thrilled with a wooden choo-choo and an orange. I got to revel in it, so will my kids, and no amount of liberal guilt will stop me! There are 364 other days in the year to cultivate kindness and generosity in them and, hopefully, they will take advantage of their own advantages on those days instead of just being paraded in front of the needy one day a year only to ignore them the rest. Golly! I sure do have an opinion on THAT, huh? : )
Anyway, thoughts on this process? Are you a budgeter? Do you spend lavishly and joyously? Is Christmas your thing? If you're religious, how do you work the religion into what has become a very commercial thing for pretty much all?
And, yes, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet.
At my age, making a list is pretty stupid because most of the people who buy me presents don't buy me presents anymore. For instance, my mom and Dave buy for grandkids only. My dad usually buys something, but he never pays heed to lists. Same for my grandmother, who further claims that she isn't buying for anyone this year save for her growing brood of great-grandsons (6 this year, up from a mere 3 last Christmas!). Ted always buys us too much, but he usually follows a theme of some sort. He decked me out with "bar" stuff a couple of years ago. This year, who knows what he'll buy? The only people who really buy for Kevin and me are Kev's parents. My mother-in-law LOVES Christmas and loves to splurge and, thankfully, loves to splurge on adult children, too. So, mostly, the list is for them.
So what did I ask for for myself? Quilt store gift certificates and Smartwool sox. That's pretty much it. I put the same things on Kevin's list as I always do--Levi's 501s and Carhartts, size 32 X 34; wool sox, interesting wood. Our "team" list is more extensive. This is partially because we don't buy for each other as we share all incoming funds and can usually take care of our own individual gifting needs--such as fabric and cheap tools. And we hate buying electronics for ourselves, so at least one electronic thing usually ends up on our co-list. Last year we got XM radio. This year we're either putting a dishwasher or a digital camera on the list. Not sure yet.
Our #1 most-wanted item is new tile for the kitchen floor. Our kitchen is large and the tile we want is $2.25 a square foot. It will cost about $1000 to do the entire floor. We figured we could ask for tile, see how much we get, and fill in the rest, much like more conventional couples do when they register for china and such. This gives interested parties the opportunity to spend as little as $2.25 or as much as $1,000! On us! Isn't that wonderfully thoughtful and oh so flexible? Of us?!
This all sounds OUTRAGEOUS, I'm sure, but it's within the bounds of what other people have established. Christmas lists are always a tricky thing, given their intrinsic gimme nature, but the fact is that people are going to buy us stuff, just as we are going to buy/make stuff for them, and we're all pretty practical Midwesterners who figure that if you're going to spend money you might as well spend it on things people want and need rather than on stupid tripe like overpriced "past, present, and future" diamond necklaces, and--ew--clothing, and stuff you already have. I must admit to being a bit annoyed when people don't have their list ready when I'm ready to buy stuff. That would include everyone this year. Fine--no problem. Just remember that I'm not quite as charitable to those who annoy me. . . .
Stevie's list is a masterpiece. He checks out the Sunday circulars and the toy catalogs that we get that we never asked for, cuts out those items that are most desirable, and--at my request--tapes them into a notebook. This gives the gift-givers, of which there are MANY, not only a picture and catalog number and price and, at times, coupon of the items he likes, but a good general picture of the KINDS of things he wants, so they can feel relatively confident of substituting those goods that can't be found.
And it's hilarious to see what he cuts out. Gender stereotypes, activate! He skips over all the "girl" pages and thankfully, many of the electronics pages, and heads straight for the building toys. His few notebook pages are packed with anything and everything Legos and Star Wars, but almost always it's the dark side of those toys--Knight's Kingdom Legos and evil droid-form Bionicles and anything with a dark and busy box cover. I don't get the covers of boy's toys. The design concept is so totally bewildering, so mystifying, so out-of-proportion that I stand in the aisles holding the box, reading the words upon it, and still wonder, often aloud "What the hell IS this thing?!"
Whatever it is, Stevie would like it, please. I bought him the Knight's Kingdom Legos, and some Magnetix, and a microscope. He's taped many more such items in his notebook-of-want, along with some rather peculiar things. For instance, for the second year in a row he has cut out the pink "tower of puppies" from the Lillian Vernon catalog, along with the New! Kitty Tower that he says I can have. He also cut out a fuzzy hive of bees with numbers on the various beehive holes. That's for Mark. And he also cut out something for his Uncle Ted which I will reluctantly buy because I have been unable to find it cheaper elsewhere and the notion that my sweet 5-year old chose several appropriate items for other people is too damn adorable to ignore. THAT is the spirit of Christmas, my friends!
So anyway, there you have it. What are WE getting for others? Kevin abhors the holidays although he does nothing but profit from them in the form of copious gifts and food he didn't have to cook, so we've agreed to increase the quantity of homemade items to cut down on the commercialism. Don't be fooled, though--it's not necessarily cheaper to make stuff, especially if you're making bowls with teakwood and ebony and quilts with fabric that generally runs $9.00 a yard. Raw ingredients are still purchased goods, and it all adds up! But there is something to be said for giving something handmade. And, honestly, giving IS the best part of the whole holiday. I enjoy the stuff, but I much prefer watching someone else open a quilt that I spent dozens or even hundreds of hours working on, or even something that I bought that turned out to be just The Thing, and presented in a joyously wrapped package. I love wrapping.
God I'm domestic.
Thoughts on this process? I'm always interested to hear what people have to say about their gift-giving/receiving traditions. Always have I talked of changing the whole concept of the holiday--keeping it, mind you, but changing it--so that it is focused solely on giving. I guess it pretty much is, save for those folks who really want to buy us stuff and want to know what we want/need.
I believe there's an achievable balance for the kiddies. I want my kids to experience the joy of giving AND receiving! Just like I'm not going to send them around on Halloween collecting pennies for UNICEF without collecting candy, too, I don't expect them to spend their Christmas Eve in a soup kitchen and be perfectly thrilled with a wooden choo-choo and an orange. I got to revel in it, so will my kids, and no amount of liberal guilt will stop me! There are 364 other days in the year to cultivate kindness and generosity in them and, hopefully, they will take advantage of their own advantages on those days instead of just being paraded in front of the needy one day a year only to ignore them the rest. Golly! I sure do have an opinion on THAT, huh? : )
Anyway, thoughts on this process? Are you a budgeter? Do you spend lavishly and joyously? Is Christmas your thing? If you're religious, how do you work the religion into what has become a very commercial thing for pretty much all?
And, yes, I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet.
posted by lulu | 8:34 AM
4 Comments:
I'll say more on this later, but I had to point out that as I read this my iPod has shuffled up Elvis's "Blue Christmas" and the theme to "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."
Freaky!
And don't tell me that iPod's don't consider the calendar date in their internal clocks when they are shuffling. I have received more Christmas-related music in the last two days of song shuffling than in the last several months.
Random, my ass!
My gift-giving traditions and ineffectual strategies TK!
Because Lulu is bored and I ALWAYS try to give Lulu what she wants . . .
What is on my list RIGHT NOW:
Only the Complete Calvin and Hobbes; you can make fun if you want, but this comic was awesome.
Other than that, well . . . iPods always need (highly-priced)accessories and music to fill them up.
I truly need nothing at all, but I would like more than two days to spend in Tifton with my family. I haven't seen them in an obscenely long time. It's not their year in the swapping rotation, so they are probably going to get the short end of the schedule. Not that I'm happy about it.
Um, I would appreciate small things I guess because we have so much stuff that takes up lots of space.
Clearly I haven't thought much about this and don't have specifics.
Traditions? Well, since my siblingss now have their own growing families we tend to only buy gifts for them. So, each kid draws a name of one of their cousins and that is where the gift exchanges come from.
My parents always get something for each of the kids and their spouses. Usually small things and some corresponding money.
I have already gotten my mom, my dad, and Tegan something. I'll probably get T at least one more thing as the holidays approach.
Ariel's list is long, like Stevie's ususally shifting hour by hour as commerical TV dictates. But we make her put items on a refrigerator list (now about six items long). We have told her many times that she won't get everything she lists and we have pointedly ignored many of the things that she mentions. Generally, her choices are very girly--Barbie's, various animal dolls, etc.
As for Ruth, she is (thankfully) unaware of the consumerist orgy that awaits. If asked she usually says things like "birthday cake." This weekend she pressed for "candy." I tried to get Tegan to understand that if we spent $2.75 on a bag of Hershey Miniatures, Ruth would have the Best Christmas Ever.
So, there it is for now, in all of its amorphous glory.
I'll probably steal this idea for my own blog soon.
I think I'm gonna gag on my hummous and homemade wholewheat peasant bread. What I want for Christmas is to deconstruct the phrase "true meaning of Christmas" and call it a day. Someday I'll eat these words, like when Helga and/or Jessi arrive at Grandma Gven and Grandpa Sven's house and we go stark raving nuts with gifts for their kids. I live for that day. Until then, I'm stuck in a minimalist mode. Wool sox for me, thank you.
Traditions. I'm getting a little better each year at ignoring the mass/mainstream celebration, and therefore escaping the irritation and rage at its insanity. Our extended families have diverged somewhat on what constitutes appropriate giving and other observances, so we send them all a laboriously composed holiday letter and a little token gift. We can expect to receive from each sibling/parent an item reflecting their particular beliefs and styles, which are all over the map, as we are geographically. This year, H and G are going to be far away, so I'm not sure what we'll be doing. Like Burb, I'll have to give it some thought and blog away. After Thanksgiving.
I've gotten over my irritation at the mainstream thing. Now my Christmas celebration is a choice, albeit a choice that I would have never made had it not been for mass culture.
Kevin and I are quite capable of ignoring the whole damn thing. THAT would be Kevin's choice. But I say . . . WHY? If you enjoy buying stuff and putting up a tree and making labor-intensive cookies and listening to Christmas songs and--most importantly--feel no pressure to do so--where's the harm?
I've learned to respect Kevin's wishes to not actively participate, and he's learned to live with the up-side of the holiday, which is the joy he DOES get from making things for people and eating all of the good food, and for the XM radio that he pretty much holds hostage in his truck.
I love Christmas! I would say to anyone reading this that, if you don't, then fuck it! Don't do it! I find it quite irritating that people put themselves WAY out to live up to something because they feel compelled or marketed or otherwise pressured to do it. Po-jama people.
But when Stevie woke up in the late afternoon from a long nap and came out in the living room and saw the tree that I had put up earlier in the day and the wrapped presents, and the first words out of his mouth were "That tree is BEAUTIFUL!!", I knew that Christmas wasn't going away in my house anytime soon.
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