Another Day in the Country
Gifts that keep on giving
© Another Day in the Country
I’m putting away the last of the Valentine’s Day decorations, which have been stacking up in the guest bedroom for a couple of weeks, and I spy this long, light-colored, slender stick with a grooved knob on one end and a handle on the other.
This contraption was a Christmas gift from my friend Phyllis. She’d dropped it off after I was in California for the holidays.
“What on earth do you do with this thing?” I asked my sister. “It looks like a back scratcher, but what’s with this key ring attached?”
Phyllis is very inventive.
“It’s to put lotion on your back,” my sister calmly assured me.
I thought she was joking. She wasn’t. The unit came with a box of little round cotton pads that women remove makeup with, and I figured out that the idea was to put the pad over the knob and secure it with the round key ring, apply lotion to the pad, and rub that long-handled, padded knob up and down your back.
Giving gifts is such an interesting exercise because we give presents for a lot of reasons.
Sometimes, we give them just for fun — like the wand I just described. It says to someone, “I’m thinking about you. Have fun with this.”
Sometimes we give gifts for politeness, like a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates to a hostess.
Often, gifts commemorate birthdays, weddings, and graduations — where we resort to sending money because we don’t know what other gift would be more appropriate.
I really eschew the money-in-a-card thing for myself.
“C’mon, Pat,” I say, “can’t you be more creative?”
I did send my grandson $50 not long ago. His dad is looking for a used Honda Civic for Dagfinnr’s first car, so I sent money in a box with a Matchbox-size Honda Civic and said, “This is for your first tank of gas.”
I figure, if you have to send cash as a gift, be inventive.
Our friend Tony Meyer was good at this. When he sent a check to a niece or nephew for some occasion, he’d make the check out in some unusual amount, like $49.23.
“If I made it out for $50, they’d just cash it without a second thought,” he said, “but $49.23 or $27.77 — they’ll think twice about receiving that gift.”
Worst gift ever?
My friend Norma texted me: “One year my mother bought five of those pre-lit, white, sparkly, rotating, fake Christmas trees that were briefly all the rage for herself and her four daughters. Luckily, I lived a long way away, so she never knew I never used mine. But she used hers up until she died.”
In the world of gift giving, one of the most extravagant gifts that comes to mind is when a friend of ours offered my sister an all-expenses-paid trip to Bali!
There was a sudden vacancy on a group tour Jill had signed up for, and why not invite Jess?
“I have to think about it,” Jess responded.
“What’s there to think about,” I’d said to her, “Bali is a wonderful place. I’ve been there!”
And then she began to enumerate a list of concerns she had about accepting this gift — very valid things to ponder before making a decision..
She did accept — once, twice — but several years later, when a third invite came, she declined.
“Been there, done that.”
Bali is a long, long way from Kansas, and Jess has never been a long-distance traveler by nature.
When I asked my cousin Keith what his most memorable gift was, he said immediately: “I got it! It was Christmas 1953, and we came home from the service at church, and there under the tree was a Marx Farm set complete with a barn, fences, a silo — even milk cans.”
It was pure magic for an innocent little country boy who still believed in Santa Claus.
Our cousin Adam is a drummer, and one day his mother-in-law said, “You know, I just love hearing you play drums. Will you play them at my funeral?”
He chuckled and said, “That’s kind of silly because you won’t hear them then.”
But he promised. Time went by, and last week the family was gathering for Vicki’s 80th birthday dinner when someone knocked on the door.
Outside on the sidewalk in front of the house was a whole drum line from the School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, to play drums for her birthday.
“Now that is memorable!” Vicki laughed. “They played five songs. I gave all 14 of them a hug, and then they had to go play for their team’s basketball game. They won! What could be better than that?”
My list of favorite gifts to receive includes flower seeds, massage gift certificates, movie tickets, tights, games, artsy stuff, and chocolates.
Dagfinnr tells me that he used to not be so excited about receiving clothes, but at almost 18, he’s changing his tune — in spite of having received 20 pairs of socks this past Christmas from various relatives.
Books always are gifts I love receiving. Once, I received a book and found a pressed flower between the pages. Another time, it was a $20 bill with a note, “For your next good read.” I’d have missed that second gift if I hadn’t read the first one.
One day, a long time ago, I received a copy of “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran from my old friend Dr. Shaw with his favorite passages underlined.
“There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward. Through the hands such as these God speaks” on another day in the country.