I read today that the best gift to give someone who has everything is your deepest sympathy. The author didn’t elaborate but I imagine people who have it all must be bored. No goals, nothing to wish for or dream of, and probably a houseful of stuff that needs dusting. Well, that may not be an issue, they probably have maids too.
Those people probably have too much noise, too many places to be, and too many folks who hang around hoping for a handout. Their relatives probably resent them and talk smack about them. Nobody wants them to come for holiday dinners because they’ll be dressed to the nines, trying to outshine the commoners, and talking incessantly about their trips abroad.
There are holiday traditions for cheapskates and poor relations, that make everyone laugh. Laughter is the best of gifts, but the golden people probably don’t have much of that, what with watching the stock market and deciding on the best security device for their homes. Meanwhile, the joker in some family sends his brother the fruitcake that Aunt Suzy made a decade ago, knowing he’ll get it back next year. Aunt Suzy’s feelings won’t be hurt; she’s been in her grave for nine of those years. I hear some folks do the round robin thing with Christmas cards too.
And there’s the ugly sock contest, the ugly sweater contest, the silly snowman contest, and probably a dozen others I haven’t heard of.
Think about that for a minute. Ask yourself if the holiday has become a contest, with everyone careful to spend the right amount on each person on the list—remember how much they spent on you last year? Never mind, you can’t possibly afford anything close to that amount. Who makes the fancy cookies that happen to sit on the buffet table next to your plain brownies? Admit, it, you sneak over and move your brownies to the end of the line so people won’t compare.
Postage has become such a high-end item that people have almost stopped sending Christmas cards. That’s sad. But we have a few already, and I’m going to get mine in the mail directly. Maybe they’ll arrive by Easter.
When my daughter was a preschooler, my unmarried brother-in-law always bought her some fancy toy that had to be assembled on Christmas Eve. So, we parents spent the midnight before Christmas Day poring over instructions and hunting for that screw which obviously didn’t make it into the package. My husband vowed to get even when Dick and his future spouse had kids. By the time that happened, I was too busy with three more of my own to notice, but it likely got evened out some way.
Here’s the other thing I read today. “A best friend is one who doesn’t give your child a drum for Christmas.”
Meet me here next week and meanwhile, do your best to laugh.