Return to Sender
Return to Sender
For single adults, the new year brings relief from the quandaries of Christmas.
Is a Christmas gift still a Christmas gift if the giver is also the recipient?
This seasonal quandary is likely to be sadly familiar to anyone who has reached a certain stage in adulthood—namely, the point at which the family one grew up with has atrophied or disappeared, but the family that one might make for oneself has not yet been started. Yes, I refer to those adults who spend their Christmases toiling in what is hoped to be a temporary state of singleness.
The sad fact is that family members—whether those known since birth or those acquired later on—remain the likeliest of all potential gift-givers, and in the absence of an abundance of such people, single adults must come up with creative workarounds to ensure they have something to open on Christmas morning.
In this light, Christmas cards are not an altogether hopeless substitute for Christmas gifts: Like Christmas gifts, they come “wrapped,” albeit in a festively-stamped envelope rather than actual wrapping paper, and they can contain something like a surprise, even if it’s merely a photo of a long-lost friend or relative whose appearance has changed since the last time they were seen. At the same time, as I previously noted in this space, Christmas cards can no longer be counted on in a society that considers text messages to be an acceptable mode of communication.
So, if gift-giving is to continue as an integral component of Christmas celebrations for we single folk, then we single folk must resort to the admittedly extreme measure of buying and wrapping gifts for ourselves. Do not misunderstand me: Even if I had purchased five or seven or ten things for myself, I knew that my Christmas tree would still look lonely as Charlie Brown’s, and, accepting that reality, I resolved to limit the damage to both my pocketbook and my self-respect. Fully aware that it was pitiful to buy something for myself and proceed to present it to myself as though it had been bought by someone else, I decided to do so just once this season—in other words, to buy no more than a single such gift.
So, a few weeks ago, I sauntered into the Coach store, which, like Brooks Brothers or Saks Fifth Avenue, is an establishment I shall forever associate with Christmas: Many, many Christmases ago, during my youthful career as a would-be cartoonist, I dragged my parents into a Coach store in search of a satchel to cart around my comic strips. Dear reader, I still have that satchel, which, though outliving its intended use, has accompanied me to many press screenings of movies and the occasional meeting with an editor.
This Christmas, I had a far more modest aim: to buy myself a new wallet. This Coach store having recently downsized to a smaller location, I asked the saleslady whether they carried men’s wallets. I was directed to a table where numerous fine leather goods were laid out before me. Upon selecting a wallet in a handsome dark-green hue, I faced the moment of truth: I could simply pay for the wallet and walk out with it in a bag, like a normal person, or I could respond in the affirmative when asked if I wanted it gift-boxed, like the crazy person that I am. I chose the latter option.
So, in the run-up to Christmas, a Coach box sat in the vicinity of my tree. I knew the person who had given it (me), the person who had asked that it be packaged (also me), and the person who had picked out its contents (me again). I accepted that this was a sad state of affairs, but I cannot deny that it gave me a small bit of pleasure when, crossing from the kitchen to the family room while contemplating my next column, I took note of the box.
I am afraid it gets worse: Just a few days before Christmas, I had the battery replaced on a chronograph watch that, years ago, had been an actual Christmas gift from a family member. Because the store that replaced the battery placed the watch in a nice bag, I had the option of either taking it out or leaving it in the bag until the big day. I left it in the bag, and on Christmas, I “opened” it along with the Coach box. Yes, this means that I have even started re-gifting things to myself.
I welcome the new year in part because the societal pressure of being given things for Christmas will subside for another year. My birthday is in March, but I have no temptation to give myself things for my birthday, which is not acknowledged by the public at large and is increasingly ignored by me. After all, the only thing more depressing than giving yourself a gift for Christmas would be giving yourself a birthday cake with a shockingly large number of candles.
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