I slowly unwrap my lumpy shaped soft feeling corporate Christmas gift, praying to god it’s not another jumper I can only wear one day of the year and that will itch when I put it on. Every family member who was chatting and laughing suddenly stops what they are doing to stare at me opening the package, knowing my fate before I even finish taking the wrapping off. My mum is smirking at me, the only portrayal that she knows what I’ve got and didn’t have the heart to tell whoever it was that I wouldn’t like it.
I start to look down and close my eyes, hoping against hope it’s a scarf or a dressing gown that I can take back after a while without causing offence. I take in a deep breath, and open my eyes. As I breathe out again I see before me a hand knitted jumper with Rudolf on. Great.
Christmas for me has always been a minefield: now I know that it’s supposed to be about being with your family and having a nice time, and I do. It’s just that for most people, in no uncertain terms, it’s about coping with your insane relatives that constantly ask you why you don’t have a man or your own place yet or anything else to make you feel an inch tall but don’t actually mean to offend you, while trying to look happy when you are getting presents you either have no idea what to do with or wouldn’t possibly have picked in a million years and really don’t like.
Recently while surfing the web for presents for my family: I alone hold the task between my siblings of getting gifts because basically I just don’t trust them to get anything other than toiletry sets and they themselves are particularly useless at getting anything, I found a website which listed the worst kind of gifts you could get for people. Rather amused I scrolled down the list, slowly realising that I had received every single item on the list at one point or another in my life. I felt thoroughly unloved at that point.
First, there are the clothing presents: god help any person who receives clothes, unless they have specifically asked for it, or are from people who spend all their time with you and actually know what you like.
In my family any clothes you are bought that you can’t take back must be worn at least twice around said gift -giver until you are allowed to throw it away (or burn it in some horrific cases). This must also be done with anything else you can’t take back and can’t give to someone else, for example:
Talking to my cousin she regaled me with horrendous tales of jumpers and sometimes whole outfits we had been knitted or made and forced to wear for the next few days. She told me of how I had a poncho and hat and trousers made for me out of Scottish fabric my Grandma had bought, I will say right now I was five and did not know any better. A shiver ran through me, blessed with the knowledge that I couldn’t remember it.
I know it’s sneaky and some people think it’s rude but sometimes gifts you can’t take back I will freely admit given to other people: that is if you can bear the thought of giving someone a present you don’t want. Each present must be written down on a list of with who gave it to you so you don’t give it back to the same person and cause more offence than intended. My friend once did this and their aunt didn’t talk to them for a year. One time I was given a gift from another country, and while the thought was there, I had no idea what it even was.
I honestly think there are some people born to make trouble at Christmas, and these are the ones at give ‘clever’ presents that seem to show someone their ‘problem’. To me they are the worst thing ever: I have seen a lot of family members and friends alike upset by this kind of gift idea. Last year this came in the form of a weight loss DVD for my aunt, from who, I don’t know, but she did not take it well… that Christmas involved my whole family trying to cheer her up while she regaled us with stories of how she used to be skinny when she was younger and had no idea where her tiny bit of weight gain had come from.
There are gifts you treasure because someone thought about it, even if it’s simple, like the chocolate high heel a friend, she had my name written on it and I knew she had got it just because I love shoes. However, some people put no effort into presents: I mean the gift you get that you know took someone four seconds to find and had no consideration to what you might think of it… or whether you could even use it. This present to me was from my brother: I’m ashamed to say it he just didn’t think: I got a bath set – which in itself wouldn’t have been bad: if I wasn’t allergic to most scented toiletries. Now I will always forgive him for it, but ever since I’ve been giving him ever so subtle hints about my allergies… I think he got it when he commented on it recently to a friend of ours.
Then there are the repetitive gifts: when you are given the same gifts year after year even though you have made it clear in very unsubtle terms that you don’t actually like that kind of Christmas hamper or wouldn’t use it at all – this came in the form of a recurring toiletry set from an aunt and uncle, once they found out I liked a certain type, I got it every year for 4 years.
I once got given a book about cars from a boy I had known a long time, luckily I got the joke and gave it back to him, but it reminded me of how people are sometimes given presents that the giver actually wants for themselves, like a bag my mum gave me that she eventually took for herself as I never used it.
Boxing Day is the day when most young women like to go out and shop: fighting over who’s getting the pretty top you have been eyeing up all year that just happens to be on sale for a fiver in your size is a custom us ladies cherish. However, some families seem to think this day is for another Christmas day, with charades and my uncle asking me why i don’t have a boyfriend yet (Bridget Jones springs to mind this very moment)
So how can you avoid all of this? Well, apart from never letting anyone get you a present ever again. You can’t. But you can perfect the art of the smile. The “this is a great present” one. I hate upsetting people, and unless you really don’t like the person, you don’t really have a choice.
So suck it in and smile. It is Christmas after all.
