Gift Musings

I’m not amazing at giving presents. I feel like I understand the basic conceit of giving gifts, but those come across as a litany of rules- give what the person would want, not what you want to give;  don’t give a homemaker a cookbook, household appliance, vacuum or any other household tool that would feel like your concept of that person is wholly wrapped up in their role in the home;  be thoughtful; a gift is a chance to tell a person that you understand them and appreciate who they are. It’s a nice litany, one I repeat often, full of pithy concepts and yet Christmas and birthdays keep rolling around and I am at a loss.

Jonathan’s family does lists and very practical lists at that. There is something about the practical nature of a gift that they grab onto and understand. It would be very easy for me to ask for a kitchen gadget or something for the home and get exactly what I asked for yet the litany spins and tells me I oughtn’t do that. If I don’t ask for anything, trying to be kind and let them give what they want to give, they spin in a pool of question marks and the stress ratchets up.

So I make a list and I fill it with practical items and I feel like I’ve betrayed the litany my parents passed along.

Then I open up kitchen knives on Christmas Day and I am ecstatic because I’ve been wanting new kitchen knives.

Jonathan bought me a food processor because mine broke and I have been really sad without it. He got me a better one than I’d had because he knows I won’t get myself anything nice even if I use it all the time. He tried to get me a red one because he loves how bright I am. He was glad to get me a kitchen gadget because cooking is becoming a hobby of mine, a way of creative expression. And when I opened it, or rather the one Target accidentally sent that we’re going to exchange for what he actually ordered, the litany went silent and I was delighted.

If marriage is a blending of two souls and lives, then married holidays are a blending of two families’ expectations and assumptions. And I’m starting to see why God set it up like this because there were pieces of the gift giving process that my family was missing, elements that had mutated in my mind and become rules. And there are elements in going off-list that Jonathan’s side was not experienced with. So we mix and we blend and I like to think we’re all the better for it.