[img]139|left|Jessica Gadsden||no_popup[/img]I hate gifts. I don’t want to buy them, and I definitely don’t want to receive them.
In the last few days, my dogs have barked as my doorbell has rung far more times than necessary. If it’s 10 in the morning, it’s UPS. If it’s 2 in the afternoon, it’s FedEx. If it’s some random time in between, it’s the postman. And they’ve all made the shlep up all twenty steps to my front door to deliver gifts I don’t want or need.
One day it was a wine and cheese basket featuring, of all things, “Asiago Flavored Pasteurized Cheese Spread.” And yes, that exact wording was written in a huge, stylized font. Mmmm, nothing more attractive than flavored spread. Another day it was a box of pre-seasoned chicken breasts and sugary (by sugar, I mean corn syrup-laden) desserts. On yet another morning, it was a gift card to a steakhouse chain.
Yes, I have some home training. My parents taught me to smile, say thank you, and keep my grumbling private. But someone should speak out against the tyranny of holiday season’s forced capitalism by gift. Since I’m used to the slings and arrows, I’m happy to take on that role.
Do Anything Else with It
I have always held the position (ask anyone) that whether you’re an acquaintance, friend or family – you are never obligated to buy me a gift. I’d prefer you keep the money for yourself, put it in a savings account, add it to your retirement, or give it to someone who really needs it. I’ve promised all of them that I will never like them or love them less for getting me nothing. Trust me, “nothing” makes me happier, and it saves them money. But in the winter of 2009, some stuff slipped through the cracks, regardless.
This year’s gifts, more than any other, show the true reason why gift giving is absurd. Most of my friends and family are quite aware of my, shall we say, bias against processed food. I have tortured them with hours of lectures on the problems with factory farming, the evils of supermarkets, and my refusal to consume unfermented soy products, vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup and various pasteurized dairy products among a long, long list of other things. (And no, I’m not one of those horrible guests who will turn my nose up and your home cooked food, or bring my own food to parties. Good etiquette requires I abandon these rules when eating with others at their home, and not torturing the wait staff in restaurants.) But when it comes to my own home, I rule the roost. I have strict policies on what comes in the door. Despite all this, people send me these food-oriented gifts anyway.
Indoctrinating the Newcomers
What follows is a week of pawning (or re-gifting) the stuff on others. No, I don’t feel great about offering factory-farmed chicken breasts to my housekeeper, but I do it to keep my freezer empty for my direct-from-the-farm co-op meats.
As I add new family and friends over the years, I have to condition them to get used to the fact that I generally don’t give gifts, either. I abhor the peer and societal pressure to show up at every darned occasion, wedding/baby showers, births, birthdays, Christmas, with some kind of gift in tow. If you ask the receivers in confidence, they hate (and hide in their garage) most of the stuff they get – so I think I’m on o something here.
There were a few years, right after I married, that I made an attempt to do the “gift” thing back when I was young and naïve. But it turns out that gifts are not as they are portrayed, appreciated for your thought, but rather seem to be appreciated for their “wow” value. Back when student loans and a non-existent income plagued my daily existence, I couldn’t afford wow factor gifts, and I spent hours making the best homemade gifts I could. Let’s see, there was the year I handmade about a hundred winter- themed chocolates to send to family and friends. That went over like a lead balloon. The next year, I hand knit holiday stockings – which I’m sure made it to the trash heap along with the post-holiday wrapping paper. Another year it was hand-crafted soaps (notably a project that cleans up after itself). During yet another holiday season, I carefully boxed and shipped homemade cookies and spiced nuts. I’m probably forgetting (or burying) some other years. You get the picture. Instead of thank you, I generally got information on what the “real” gift givers had given – like a photo CD player or some other gadget I could nary afford.
So I expanded my policy to include not just my family but everyone. It has been a huge burden off my shoulders. Never do I troll the malls looking for a gift for someone just because they’re on my list. (My last shopping trip was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I just might venture into another mall in February or so). I have no credit card hangovers come January. With the exception of the above, I don’t have to send out a ton of thank-you cards for stuff I don’t need or want.
Now if I could only expand my policy to include others, our roads, our malls and garages would be much better off.
Oh, and Happy New Year or Bah Humbug. I could go either way.
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender-biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. A reformed lawyer, she is a fulltime novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com
