Ahhh! The season of giving!... Well, O.K., taking too. The hallowed tradition of Santa Claus who gives a whole lot for just some cookies and milk, and the occasional glass of schnapps. After all, this is New Jersey and it gets cold here in December.
I have watched people get tore up by the holidays. When the neighbor next door sets up and entire, life-size manger scene and then lights it with searchlights he has rented for that purpose, it can get ugly.
Across the street from him lives a very calm Jewish couple. When he set up his ‘Holywood’ spectacular in his front yard and the halogen searchlights blasted through the windows of their house…. Good will to men factor got shredded.
The neighbor sees it as religious differences. The Jewish couple sees it as home invasion. For several years they had a sleigh and eight reindeers on the front porch roof. It was cute and non-denominational. They had a small lighted Menorah in the front window. Two winters ago the sleigh and seven reindeer got demolished in a severe ice storm. (The neighbor rescued the remaining reindeer from the curbside recycling,) Every year the neighbor had added a few more strings of lights, a few extra camels and sheep.
This year was his crowning achievement at what he called “Nativity Central”. He had every inch of his house and yard covered with ‘stuff’ and the searchlights were the cherries on the top.
Esther and her husband Fred sprayed layers of artificial snow on every window in their house. It made very little difference. The light still eerily glowed right through.
Fred has been seen standing on his porch, staring across the street and mumbling things like “We won the Yom Kippur war…Ha!” The neighbor tells anyone who will listen, “What do you expect? They don’t do Christmas so they don’t appreciate anyone who does.”…Peace on Earth. My earth, not your earth.
SHOP ‘TIL THE PRICES DROP!
There is a lot of talk about women in malls. Female=Shop, Male=Provide$. 
There aren’t many women I know who still salivate at the sound of a cash register. As a matter of fact, in the current economy, most are running the register and using the employee discount. True, there are still women who see shopping as the reason for existing. They approach a store like Joan of Arc on a mission. They even go food shopping with a sense of exaltation, the ones who fondle the tomatoes and sniff the cantaloupes. NO! Not me!
Holiday shopping is an exercise in uncontrolled consumerism. You can try to make a list. Gain some control. (Yeah, right!)
Granma--- Red hat,scarf and mittens set.
Uncle Joe-----Battery warmed thermal socks.
Cousin Battie------Fancy apron.
Mother-in-Law---Teflon coated Battle axe
It all looks so neat and organized, on paper.
You pull into Wal-Mart, karate chop someone to get a cart and enter the mosh pit. Alrighty then....Granma’s red hat set. Uh-oh, no red. She hates almost all other colors. WAIT!!! You find one that is a sort of maroon but it’s laying loose. There is a gift box with a blue one in it. Whoosh…now the blue one is laying loose and the maroon one is in the box. Done!
Now comes Uncle Joe’s battery socks. He needs the largest size. (Good ol’ Uncle Bigfoot.) There is a big pile of packaged battery socks. You start flipping through them. You discover they are all small. There are some loose ones on the bottom so start pawing through them. You find one, (1), sock marked ‘Large’. There must be another one here, they DO come in pairs.
Forty five minutes later you have ripped the whole display apart. There is only one large sock and you have it. A little voice whispers in your head; “Hi. I’m the Sock Elf and I have a plan. Put a medium with that large and stick them in one of the boxes. By the time he opens it, it’ll be February and you can get something else.” Great!! Thank you Sock Elf! (whew.)
Cousin Battie’s turn. Where should I look for a fancy apron? Intimates? Nah. Accessories? Nope. Kitchenware? None. Ask several Wal-mart people… The young ones look at you, puzzled. “You want a what? What’s an Apron? Maybe in the Garden Department?” The older ones just start laughing. “You have got to be kidding! They haven’t made aprons in years.” One of the younger ones does have a suggestion. “The store down the highway? They sell and rent costumes and they have this French Maid one in the window and it’s got an apron?” Cousin Battie goes on hold. Maybe you’ll get her the 5 gallon bottle of bubble bath.
Mother-in-law’s battle axe is no problem. They have a huge display of them. You’ll get her one in a nice pastel to match her baby blue hair. Fast forward to the holiday>----à
All are sitting and digesting. Presents are handed out….Granma says. “Why did you get this for me? You forgot I live in Fort Lauderdale from September to June? And this is an awful color for me. Oh Well,,,,, I guess it’s the thought that counts.” Cousin Battie rolls her eyes, “Now Grannie, Just stop that! You are never happy with her presents. You can wear it when you go to the airport.” Cousin Battie picked up her gift and shook it. It sloshed and Battie squealed, OH! My, my, my! I’ll bet you got me that bottle of pepper flavored vodka that I have been hoping for. I’m dying to try it! I knew I could count on you to get me something that I really wanted! I’m so tired of bubble bath and dusting powder.” As you think about running out the front door, Battie has torn the wrapping off the gift. “oh…Well, I guess I keep getting this sort of thing from my own family because they are hinting that I smell bad. HHMMMPPPHHH! Never fear, I shall use it!”
Granma is covering up her face to hide her grinning giggling. She snorts, “Hey Battie? You wanna trade? I’ll give you this ugly purple hat set. I can use that stuff when I wash my dog Poochie.”
Mom-in-Law is sitting primly, holding her elaborately wrapped gift. She is smiling like the crocodile she resembles. “I don’t want to mess up the wrapping. It must have taken you hours to make these fancy bows. I’ll just peek at the end of the box.” She picks at the tape seal. “Let’s see here,,, Oh, yes, it’s another battle axe. This is the sixth one I got this year. I’ll add it to my collection. It would be so funny if it was baby blue. Your sisters-in-law each gave me one. Dee-dee’s is baby blue with pearls and Donna’s is baby blue with gold. Dora’s is baby blue with pink roses, but Dena gave me a plain baby blue one which is really cheap looking. And Pinky’s new wife, Whatsername, gave me one with baby blue sequins. I’m sure yours is nicer than any of theirs.” She opens the end of the box, “OOPPSS! You left the price tag on…Hmm…very low price, and it’s from Wal-mart?...Lovely.”
Uncle Joe suddenly screams, “OH SHIT!!! These socks are burning up my feet! YAAHH!!! Get them offa me!” He is laying on the floor with his legs sticking straight up in the air. The one sock that is completely on his foot is spitting sparks and wisps of smoke. The other sock is only half on his other foot. Granma bats the socks off and into the fireplace where they burst into flames.
You don’t want to open your gifts. There seems to be a ticking sound coming from one of them. You are hoping and praying it’s a bomb.
THE REVOLVING DOOR GIFTS
My family was always peculiar about Christmas,,,(NO! That’s not true! They were weird about everything.) We did some Chanukah and then my mom’s side did Christmas. My mom was #2 in a family of 3 girls and 1 boy. The oldest sister was the auditor of all holidays. She read etiquette books and memorized the rules. She disliked leaving her house to go shopping. In her younger days she would order from a catalog. Not having children, she would order by age description, “Intended for use by ages 7 to 11. Keep packaging materials away from infants and toddlers” I was lucky because at least I got a toy. My cousins were boys so they got underwear and pajamas. I wasn’t THAT lucky though. My birthday is 21 days before Christmas, so I got a birthday card with a dollar in it. No more, no less… One dollar. I got that with my Christmas presents. When I hit 18 I got a raise, I got TWO dollars! I always felt a little cheated.
My Aunt Peg enjoyed ill health. NO, she REALLY ENJOYED IT!! That was in the days when you could go in the hospital for ‘Observation’. She would tell her doctor that she felt: “Awful and very nervous.” And that would buy her at least a week in the hospital. Because she could go in as often as possible, she always wanted gifts of fancy nightgowns, robes and bed jackets. We always obliged. My mom would buy the gift for my Uncle John to give her because as a bachelor, he didn’t know a bed jacket from a flak jacket. He would give money to everyone else but never dared to give it to her. Her husband, Uncle Eddie, gave her things like snazzy jewelry or expensive perfume. One year he gave her a color T.V.! That’s when there were only 2 or 3 programs in color. It sure put her on top of the Aunthill with her neighbors.
As I got older I would try to get her something besides nightgowns. One year I bought her a really pretty yellow glass vase with gold butterflies on it. She opened it and got the “What the hell is this?” look on her face. My mom leaned over my shoulder and whispered, “I told you to give her a robe.” 
Aunt Peg thanked me and said how pretty it was that it’s too bad it didn’t match her color scheme. From that moment on, I never bought her anything she couldn’t sleep in.
She always told everyone to buy my Uncle Eddie a tie or black dress socks. He wore them 2 or 3 times a year. He owned a small machine shop and spent most of his time in gray work clothes. When he wasn’t working, he went fishing and I doubt he wore a tie for that.
I remember the year the ‘Round Robin’ gifts started. 1964. 
It had probably been going on for a long time before but that was the year that she slipped up. She gave my Aunt Kay a lavender robe with lace ruffles and ribbons. It was very nice and very...familiar? It was the same one I had given to Aunt Peg for her birthday in April.
My mom and I had gone shopping to get her a present. Mom saw it and said, “It’s got a lot of ‘Frou-Frou’ and ribbons. She loves that.” My mom was not a ‘Frou-Frou’ kind of gal and neither was her younger sister, Aunt Kay. My Aunt Kay was very out spoken and the only one of the three sisters to use the word “Bullshit!” We held our breath as she unfolded it and took off her glasses. She put one of the earpieces in her mouth, (that meant she was taking a serious look!) She rubbed the material between her fingers. She put her glasses back on and announced, “Now this is a very pretty robe and shows a lot of good taste.” She was looking right at me and my mom when she said it. She KNEW!!
The phone lines almost melted over the next week or so and that’s what started the Christmas Conspiracy. From that time on, any gift that was given BY Aunt Peg, for any occasion, was left in the box it came in and was passed on to the next one. My mom gave the Peg Prize to her younger sister who would pass it on to me. Then I would pass it to Aunt Peg for the next gift occasion. All of the sleepwear was the same size, large or one size fits all. When Aunt Peg beefed up a bit we just scissored the size off the tag. We knew no one would wear the ‘Eternal’ sleepwear. She always bought brand new stuff for her hospital stays. There was one peignoir set that went around about 10 times. It was black nylon with red satin trim and looked like it was from Frederick’s of Hollywood. We never found out who had given it to her in the first place but we suspected it was my cousin’s second wife.
She did the same thing with Men’s presents. She gave my troll mate, (who hasn’t shaved in about 35 years and has a chest length beard) a Norelco shaver and a bottle of Aqua Velva. I think we gave it to his father for his birthday. We started giving Uncle Eddie fishing gear and T-shirts with fishing jokes on them. He never did have to buy a tie or black socks.
Home-made or Hand-made?
I’m sure some of you crafty people out there can spend months making Christmas or Chanukah gifts. A lot of work goes into them and it would be easier and cheaper to buy something.
If you give ‘someone’ a hand-knitted, king-size afghan and you hear that ‘someone’ refer to it as being “home-made”, does it cause the hair on your neck to prickle? And if the next gift they open is a box of cellophane covered hankies with machine embroidered daisies in the corners and a gold sticker that says, “Hand-Embroidered in Taiwan”…. And they coo..”OOhhhh! Look how delicate they are! You can see they are ‘Hand-Made’!” Put away the knitting needle you would like to holster in ‘someone’s ‘ ribs. Next year, give that ‘someone’ something you can get off the ‘reduced for clearance’ rack. Make the afghans for people in the nursing homes or hospitals. They will know it’s ‘Hand-Made’ and they will love the hands that made it.
The best gift is the one that doesn’t need a holiday. If you give something of yourself, time, attention, love… You won’t need to worry about size, color scheme or how to wrap it. It will be appropriate for any holiday or religion and even everyday. And you won’t be upset if you get the same thing, Love, attention or time, back.
HAPPY WINTER SKIES TO YOU…
AND GIVE PEACE A FIGHTING CHANCE!
Writers' Corner: Short Stories :: E-mail
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