GIVE GIFTS THAT KEEP GIVING, AND RETURNING

Give gifts at Christmas? Sounds easy enough. If giving gifts is the tradition, which gift is the question.

Give gifts that say something more than “At least I wrapped it.” Christmas is not a junior high health class, but after 2020 it’s a mental health check.

So far, so good, but that top pic?

That’s a perfect gift for a nurse in the group just for the can, but it’s also an underrated dessert according to buzzfeed where it’s rated #1 for unclear reasons.

If you get pushback on what it means to give gifts with meaning, plan early for next year’s Christmas shopping.

Get it done early and go into the Christmas home run trot by Halloween.

Theme Gifts Mean More

Books in a series are a wonderful idea. Kids love a series, adults love a series.

Maybe a cookbook for the more sophisticated in your small pod.

Martha Stewart?

Think of a gift given as sending a message. The Spotted Dick gift I gave this year, last year, the year before, expired ten years ago. One of these years someone is going to unwrap it and open it.

After that things will change. In those new times familiar traditions will be even more important to connect with.

Give Gifts That Connect And Share

Around the Christmas brunch table the conversation veered toward Christmas Stories that were giving and sharing and warm.

Those were the specific requirements.

One of the group was banned in a sweet-natured way, if there is such a thing. Timed with Christmas, you’d expect a little slack, right?

“No stories about an eight track-turntable stereo from the green stamp store that wasn’t the quad-sound of the future.”

“No stories about the tiger-striped banana seat on the bike from the Sears in a Stingray world.”

“No stories about an axe swinging out of your hands during tree cutting and bouncing off your brother’s leg.”

Then how about:

From North Bend To Bend, Over Mountains

In the early Sixties three brothers were still small enough and bendy enough to fit into the backseat of a tiny Renault with wrapped Christmas presents stacked on top of us for the drive from the Oregon coast to central Oregon.

To Grandma’s house we went, from the real OC to the real CO.

We left North Bend after the folks got off work on Christmas Eve and drove non-stop, I think. But considering we had five in the car, we must have stopped a few times.

Grandma and Grandpa were up when we pulled in late. We unfolded out of the back and carried presents to their tree tucked in beside their baby grand piano.

Like mother like daughter, both believed a piano in the room was important, even if no one played.

Us three boys slept to a bedroom with out sleeping bags, two on the beds, one on the floor. The next morning we inventoried the room, as children do.

There were dresser drawers to pull open and look at. We slide a closet door and found a full length beaver pelt coat along with a mink stole. Two of us jumped on the beds in fur while the other continued the closet work.

Everything stopped when he came out with a Playboy magazine. He’d found a stack of them back in the corner. Like the good boys we were, one of us carried the Playboy trailed by two mountain men in fur out to the big room to ask an adult if we could look at it.

Grandma gave a howling hoot of a laugh when she saw us and Grandpa said, “We’re life long learners and like to read. I have another book good boys love.”

He traded a large format Wizard of Oz book for the Playboy. The stack was gone next time we looked.

“That’s a Christmas story?”

“Is Die Hard a Christmas story? Is Love Actually?”

“Is it true?”

“Which part don’t you believe?”

“Playboy?”

“That part is true.”

“Which part isn’t?”

“Grandma got angry watching us pull apart her vintage fur like wild dogs.”

“Then she whipped you with a razor strop?”

“No, but it was hanging on the bathroom door just in case. The thing was huge, but we were small.”

“Not bad. I like this one.”

“Really?”

“Find one Christmas moment that shines. Bring that jewel of a memory into focus and imagine it’s a lens to see Christmas through.”

“That sounds familiar.”