Eight more days until Christmas. It’s getting a bit stressful, as always, because presents want to be bought and travel arrangements want to be made.
Let’s talk about presents. This year I’m a gift cynic. I feel like I don’t want stuff. Quite the opposite, much stuff feels like a burden to my life. It needs space and it’s the reason decisions need to be made — not just „where should it go?“, but also, days or years later, „should I get rid of it? But I got it from mom!“ And decisions are a burden.
It’s not hard for me to imagine a culture where gifting anything else but flowers and chocolate is considered an unwelcome intrusion into one’s home. (By flowers and chocolate I mean all things that you consume, or experience, like events…or are gone naturally eventually.)
That said, or course I love a nice or beautiful or thoughtful gift. When gifts land, they’re a great joy in life. And I like good stuff, too: Graphic novels, for example. Almost all I read, I get from our library. But if I read one I really like, I sometimes (rarely) buy it for my own collection. It feels nice to walk by my book shelf and get reminded of these pieces of art and what I felt when I read them.
Sometimes I miss having little money. I’m not 10 anymore. Buying these books — a lot of them! — is possible from my pocket money these days. Back then, it wasn’t. I needed Santa. Which means I wished, I yearned, I waited…and on Christmas Eve, I experienced some great happiness. Just by getting exactly what I wanted.
These days, I and most others I know can get exactly what we want easily — too easily, maybe. So for Christmas presents to make us happy, they need to be a surprise. Something we didn’t know we wanted or needed. Or something that brings us joy, but that we considered just a little bit too expensive to buy it for ourselves.
Yeah, gifting is hard.
I’ve never had a talent for it anyway.
I’ll just get everyone flowers. Flowers and chocolate.