The Reason For The Season

http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/archive.asp?nextform=viewcomic&id=1300

For the most part, I avoided people this week and weekend. I was invited over to a friend's for dinner on Friday, but I stayed home virtually the whole week. I actually preferred it. I had alot of distractions at home that I really wanted to use, but never could because I was always somewhere other than home. The electronics all got a good work out, I got to cook a sufficient amount, I cleared my list of backlogged TV shows and movies, and I had uninterruptable painting time. Not too shabby from a laziness perspective. I even spent the last day cleaning the apartment, which doesn't sound all that glamorous but when placed in the context of how much time I was there was a relief.

This holiday, however, does a great job of setting up the next holiday- Christmas now looms on the event horizon and is just four weeks away. The usual messages were there, of course: "Come to (our store) and SAVE on..." This area has the usual group of people saying "remember the reason for the season," but there's the loonies out there that agree with them as much as they can. The loonies will say "don't contribute to corporate greed," and so on, but the net effect is the same. It's not that easy, though.

I have had considerable time to think about this for many reasons, not the least of which is the number of times that I haven't been home for the holidays in the last years. But there's also two competing dilemmas in my head as well. One is that I just don't know what to get people. I want to give them something and I want them to feel good and enjoy a little generosity, but I know that if I get something it's not hardly ever used or has no place, or worse it's not liked. Even the phrase "it's the thought that counts" is not a salve when you're in a room with a person to whom you've given a well meant gift that is received as if it were emitted flatulence.

The second is that I really don't want anything for myself. I'm dead serious when I say this. I don't want anything any more. I have all that I need, I make do with what I have, and if I need more I can get it myself at any one of the other 364 days a year. People ask me what I want and I say 'nothing.' I say 'nothing' because the truth is that I do want things, but they fall into three categories- intangible gifts, monetary gifts, or gifts that people don't want to give.

As part of a 'proof-of-concept' of the gift people don't want to give category, I made a gift list one year when prodded that had on it things that I was absolutely certain to find to be cool, but wouldn't be advertised in, well, anything. A quick internet search would have shown easy instructions on how to obtain them, and all involved were net-savvy. Didn't get one of them; I wasn't expecting to, but that's . In addition, one party commented on my list, saying that some of those things were 'just weird.' They may have been, but that's not the point. The point is that it's something that I liked and when prompted for ideas I delivered. This year I want a new rear-passenger car door, because my current one is severely damaged and it makes me sad to look. Don't see that coming, either, but isn't that a legitimate 'want'? Since I won't get things that are 'weird' to some, I'd prefer to say 'nothing.' It doesn't get my hopes up and doesn't confuse anyone else.

So where does that leave us? Intangible gifts usually can't be given (I just want a week of alone time, or time with my family), and asking for money is outright rude even if it's for a purpose (I'm trying to save for a house down payment, could you...) Plus, there are things that are just inappropriate to give as gifts and when you sit down and think about it the definition of what can be given is not as broad as one would suspect. I've seen the idea of telling people who your preferred charities are if you wanted to give, but most people I know give significantly to charity already and to ask them to give YOUR gift to charity 'steals their thunder.' They also wish to be generous and make you happy with a gift, for the same reasons described above. What's more dangerous- telling people you don't know how to be appropriately generous, or telling people you don't want them to be appropriately generous?

We're often told you don't need to give someone a store-bought gift, and that if it's handmade it's more valuable as a gift- the gift from the heart always speaks louder. Christmas cookies carry more sentimental weight to me than many gifts, usually because the sources make them and will as long as they can. I don't know if it's gotten worse or it's the information-overload phenomenon and I know that businesses are just doing what they do to survive, but the amount of advertising to buy gifts can be suffocating at times. But in the absence of that, if you don't have a talent and aren't going to be with your family (or those to whom you'd give gifts), what do you do to express your generosity?

I think I'd better think it out again.