How many shopping days left until Christmas? Well, whatever it is, it’s not enough. Cry all you want during your next trip to Target about the Bleeding Skull Halloween costumes hanging next to the icicle lights and the faux-fir tree display. Do you hear what I hear? It’s the rat-a-tat-tat of mass merchants gunning for our rummy-tum-tums.
Every year around this time I kick myself for not starting earlier. Like, oh, I don’t know: maybe in August? The idea would be to try to spread the financial strain over weeks and weeks rather than concentrate it into one hellish month of gorging and gouging. Like dental work, I put it off until it’s too late, or till it hurts. Forget credit card purchases and “deferred billing.” All over the department stores the cheery signs declare, “No payments until February 3rd!” What a good idea. I can see myself now, coming to in the aftermath of holiday parties and get-togethers with an extra layer of gelatinous chub quilting my jowls, and, surprise, about five hundred dollars in the hole. It won’t just seem like the darkest day of the year, it truly will be.
There’s also an intricate system of checks and balances involved in gift giving. Who to buy for? How much is too much? How little says, “This really is the least I could do?” It’s not the thought that counts anymore, but the deliberation. What you give says so much about what you think about the other person. Last year, my sister’s gift told me that she thought I was the kind of person who made her own doughnuts.
Some couples give detailed “wish lists” to one another. This is wrong. The only acceptable time for a person over the age of twelve who is not a bride to request a specific gift is when they’re asking for bone marrow, a kidney, or primary custody of the children. Which is essentially a form of re-gifting.
And then there’s the gift of gab. Some people just give till it hurts. You know you’ve been there. Office party: knocking back a styrofoam cup of warm, nutmeg-speckled sluice while eyeing the cutie-pie standing at the buffet table near the pumpkin squares. But before you can make your move, darkness descends in the form of a boring coworker. You try to escape, but the air around you is quickly converted to sleeping gas, and soon a coagulated topskin forms on your egg, milk, and booze treat. Initially you listen, then move on to presenting an outward show of listening (which is just as good to your captor) while your eyes glaze over like a holiday ham. Meanwhile the sugar plum over at the buffet has wandered out of flirting range.
Among my extended group of friends, we try to have a little fun with tradition. This year, instead of “Secret Santa” gifts, we’re having “Surprised Santa.” We’ll meet for dinner and drinks at a lovely, expensively priced bistro. We will imbibe to our heart’s content, and at closing time, in ones and in pairs, stealthily sneak out of the cafe until there is only one of us left holding the check. Santa!
Budgeting for a family during the holiday season can be tough. When I was a kid, my mom used to stuff our stockings with toiletries, things she was going to have to buy for us anyway. Years later, I imagine her raiding the medicine cabinet well past midnight on Christmas Eve: While her family sleeps, her vision clouded by exhaustion, she desperately tries to decide which one of us kids would appreciate the extra toothbrush versus the Doan’s Backache Pills.
Bestowing gifts on family and friends now is more of a challenge. Most people I know have too much swag already. Our houses look like Pier One. The things we could all use, like patience, goodwill, and faith, are in short supply. Most of us wander through this time of year wound as tight as a spool of curling ribbon. Be sure to make time for yourself. Maybe do a little retail therapy.
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