Seeing Faces To Forget

Throughout this season there have been too many gifts to specifically remember any individual surprise. Actually, this year has been full of generosity from friends, family, and coworkers alike. It has been at times overwhelming but appreciated each end every time that an unexpected box or envelope has been put in our hands. However, since I have written about the many gifts that we received earlier in the year, I will stick with those that we have gotten over the last month or two… basically during the holiday season.

Hanukkah was early this year and it was fun surprising both our son and my wife with gifts for each night… and then some. What I got in return was better than anything that I handed out as the faces that they made were something that I am already looking forward to seeing again next year. However, my wife and I agreed, long before the holiday and prior to settlement on the house, that my gift was a new set of office furniture. Of course, my wife also got me a cordless drill during the holiday which I didn’t expect. All of these things I am going to use for years so I pretty much made out like a bandit.

Toward the end of the month I received my preferred gift, a few times over in fact, of a gift card to a few places that I can make that money stretch as far as possible. In all, between friends, family, and coworkers, we probably received close to $200 in plastic. This was on top of the small gifts and has nothing to do with the horde that our son received. Although he probably would have been just as happy with the boxes and tissue paper. More about that later.

However, like the reactions I received from my wife and son, the best part of the holiday season has been the looks on people’s faces when I hand them an unexpected box or envelope. Many of the brothers at the lodge seemed to refuse reality, my coworkers were shocked, and family members were surprised. For me this is what the holiday season is about regardless of your faith. It has been a great season and a difficult one at the same time but seeing those glimpses of joy allow me to focus only on what is good and happy about this time of year.   

Think Before Sending Ralphie A Bunny Suit

Everyone, at some point in their life, has found themselves in a position when they open up a gift, fain a smile as best as they can, and tuck it off into the corner in the hopes of forgetting about that brief but unpleasant memory. While those gifts may not be as extreme in their unpleasantness as Ralphie revealing a pink bunny suit, they are still a hiccup to the festivities of the day. We do our best to forget the figurative magenta and look high and low for that Red Rider BB Gun tucked behind the piano if anything to erase the memory of a horrid gift.

To varying degrees this happens to each of us every single year. Some gifts are exactly what we asked for… usually an item off of a previously requested list. While not a unique or creative gift, it is what we asked for and what we got. Can’t complain about that.

Other gifts we may not have put on any list, we may not have even thought of them as an option, but there is a clear thought process behind the item and, while unexpected, you are happy to have received it. These little surprises are appreciated both for the gift received but, more importantly, for the thought and consideration that was put into it.

However, there is a third category of gifts. I call them WTF with a bow on top. These are the boxes that when you crack open you wonder if they either mislabeled the box or, even worse, if they even bothered to think about who they were shopping for. Other gifts in this category range from the completely useless to the “I like it which means that everyone should like it”. Some even encompass both and are therefore deemed pink bunny gifts.

Those are the reasons why I put so much time into buying gifts (in addition to investing in trying to find the best deal). I don’t like being on the receiving end of a pink bunny gift and I really don’t want to be on the giving end. In fact, I hate the latter more than the former. There is nothing like seeing the reaction in someone’s face when you surprise the heck out of them which is immediately followed by the how did you know stare (sometimes a simple fondling of the gift gives the same message). If I don’t know how to achieve that I will either revert to their list of ask someone else for ideas.

Give and you shall receive. Your efforts will eventually pay off even if you have to go through a lot of bunny suits in the process. Even Ralphie gets the gift he has been anticipating and wishing for at the end of the movie. Keep giving great and thoughtful gifts, watch out for icicles, and don’t let the hounds get into the kitchen.