This is a big item in many households. Her Ladyship grew up in a climate of, shall we say, “heightened anticipation” about gift giving, both Christmas and birthday. In our house, my brother was the investigator, leading to the nickname, “Snoopy” and my mother placing his Christmas presents at a neighbor’s house almost until Christmas eve. Otherwise, it was certain that he’d find them. He got it from our grandfather, who, as I mentioned in a previous blog, emerged several days ahead of Christmas from their bedroom closet wearing the gloves and reading the book my grandmother was giving him.
On our first shopping trip together, Herself and I were just getting started. We were in a department store, and she had some purchases for me. She handed them to me while she opened her purse to pay for them, issuing the stern instructions “do not open this bag”. I, of course, took that as a personal challenge, and promptly took a look inside. There’s a chance I might not have seized the initiative had she just kept quiet. I have related a short while ago the story of the surprise birthday present, and the photo of it in the newspaper several days shy of my birthday. I may also have mentioned that I opened my birthday surprise from the Princess, quite by mistake, I’ll add, and if you could see me now, there’s a distinct look of chagrin on my face. Oop. It happened in a flurry of deliveries on the front porch. A perfectly honest error in judgement arising from Amazon’s lack of bold lettering informing me “NOT FOR YOU, THOMAS WALTERS”. So, I’ve managed to spoil many a surprise over the years. My father managed to do that too by playing with our “Santa” toys in advance of us opening them. It was usually as my parents were putting them out before they went to bed, and he’d be trying them out. There was the “Easter Incident” with those plastic tubes – you shook them and marbles descended through multiple layers to the bottom. I believe whoever got all the marbles down first won, in this case my father because he managed to wake up Snoopy. It was not uncommon to hear at Christmas time, a whispered hissing, “Stan – stop making noise. You’ll wake up the kids.” The year of the model cars on a track was another such episode. I remember that it took a while before I could get near them. The Old Gentleman, as we called my father, and Snoopy were playing with them for most of Christmas day.
Now, as we embark on a new age of online shopping and buying well in advance (Her Ladyship has never been a “wait until the last minute” person), there are the delightful surprise gifts that particularly she ordered back in the early fall that were packed away and completely forgotten until the first bow is thrown out signaling the start wrapping season. I’m typically the runner, setting up the dining room table as the official wrapping station. It requires that the rolls of paper be brought out, along with the large storing boxes of bows. In years past, I’d be sent in advance of wrapping day to buy more bags of bows because the ones we’d carefully saved were the wrong colors, too big or too small, or for some other reasons I never understood, just wouldn’t work. There was a time when we saved the gift boxes too. They’d go to the cellar, be carefully stacked, and brought out the next year only to be discarded because they smelled musty or mice made deposits among the sheets of tissue paper. We got to the stage of routinely buying new ones each year. Now, as lack of mobility and senility set in, we just buy gift bags. Where the heck were those thirty years ago?
Back on the element of surprise. Her Ladyship reached full “Wrap Speed” last week, right after the Christmas Card Writing phase. It’s not unlike that famous line from the movie Spaceballs, “They’ve gone to PLAID.” The passerby doesn’t want to get too close, or you’ll be adorned in ways you don’t want to contemplate. This is the fun part, though, because of the observations that come forth. “When did I buy this?” “I don’t remember ordering that.” “Isn’t that cute? I’d forgotten all about that.” The real surprises here are from parts of Asia, because some of those were ordered back in 2019 or before. Apparently they shipped via a sampan in the South China Sea, and transferred to Kon-Tiki somewhere on the Great Barrier Reef. The one coming out far ahead here is the Princess, because even in adulthood, she benefits from Her Ladyship’s gift buying. Herself and I usually set a limit for each other, but for the First Daughter, anything is on the table.
The other element of holiday surprise, as we shop online, is that those of us not particularly tech-savvy forget to clear the purchase histories, which websites and online vendors helpfully keep readily available for us. Why just this morning, Her Ladyship disclosed something that she’d like “after Christmas”. Assessing the situational information, I pulled that item, which I bought some time ago, from the bottom of my closet and showed it to her, asking if she wanted to use it now. “Surprise!!” She mentioned, in the interests of full disclosure, that she already knew I’d bought it because I forgot to “archive” the purchase. That’s the fun part. All of our purchases from our dominant supplier, and I won’t tell you who that is – I’ll just say their logo is a swoopy checkmark, are confirmed to my email, so I know pretty much what she’s bought, when she’s bought it, and when it will arrive. Here we have it. This is the surprise gift in the 21st century. It’s like on demand television, where they tell us everything we’ve watched for the last two years, and what because of it they “think you’d like.”
As we look forward to the holidays, it’s wonderful to look forward to the gifts we can expect, the gifts we’ve suggested long ago, the gifts we already know about, the ones we discovered hidden that we weren’t intended to find, and those that we’ve completely forgotten, and even the ones we bought years ago, put away, and then couldn’t find at Christmas time but came across when we were moving.
Even in a pandemic, there can be so much mystery and magic to this special season of gift giving. Every day holds an element of surprise and delight as the delivery truck stops out front or I peek out onto the front porch. Sometimes, I’ve even given Epiphany gifts, typically those that overwhelmed the postal service or were out of stock until . . . . . .
Warmest regards for a safe, happy, homebound and joyful holiday season. Let’s wear our facemasks, stay home to watch reruns of “Muppet Christmas Carol”, wait for the latest shipment of eggnog to arrive.
I'm Thinking...No! 