This year, without consulting me, my wife sent an email to both of our families, explaining that we didn’t want presents for Hannukah, and were not going to buy them either. Instead, she made a generous donation to Doctors Without Borders on behalf of our extended family. It was the type of selfless act my wife regularly does, and one of the reasons I love her deeply. Yet my first reaction was to read the email and think: “Wait a minute … I like presents!”.
I feel her pain. At this time of the year, the front of our house is a loading dock, where random gifts and goods are deposited by deliverymen daily. As an avowed advocate of analog goods, our living room teems with toppling piles of books and magazines, records, photographs and board games that I stockpile for winter, like a greedy little squirrel.
In the layer cake of our household crap, my stuff is merely the icing. The substance of our clutter is a plastic carpeting of our daughter’s toys (largely of the Disney princess variety), which, like Houdini, cannot be restrained by any form of containment. They burst forth from their appointed cupboards and boxes to bring unicorn joy to every corner of the home, mysteriously covering all dark fabrics in a thin veneer of glitter, like it’s Sunday morning at some awful disco.
Her four-month-old brother brings his own brand of consumption overload, in the form of of scattered toe crushing bouncy chairs and bright squeaky things that we have yet to write thank you notes for. And blankets. Countless barf-covered blankets.And so, when the doorbell rings and a newly-wrapped present passes the threshold, my wife rolls her eyes at the latest addition to this cornucopia of tchochkes, and mourns once more that Marie Kondo dream of a sparse, perfectly joyful house.
A few years ago, as the online economy took off, a lot of gift-giving shifted to the intangible. People wanted to simultaneously fulfill our desire to give and receive, but without all that stuff. My birthday came and I wasn’t sent envelopes or boxes, but emails with gift credit to iTunes, a membership to a music streaming service and plenty of what people once called E-Cards.
But something was missing: the material joy of actual presents.
Presents aren’t supposed to be easy. The effort required to think about and procure them can be arduous. It requires knowledge of both the market and the target, and relies on the strength of your own taste and the relationship with the recipient. But I draw great pleasure from the challenge.
Each gift is something I obsess over, as a tangible test of my relationship. The hunt is a gauntlet to run, but it’s half the fun. Sweating in a down jacket, wool hat and slush-covered boots in a bookstore, or, god forbid, shopping mall, searching for the things to tick off my list ... this is a test of the relationship at the core of the exchange.
Sure, I can effortlessly order the same thing online, maybe even for cheaper, but this challenge brings me out onto the streets. It forces me to get face to face with the holiday season, to wrestle down its schmaltzy optimism and even embrace it, finding some joy in the lights, the shop windows and the blast of Mariah Carey’s voice that will not stop chasing me, no matter what store I enter.
I also love the stakes of giving a real gift. When you email someone a present, the reaction is strictly textual, and largely neutral, like wishing someone “HBD” on Facebook, instead of calling them on their birthday. But when you present someone with a box, or an envelope, you enter a game, where every facial expression holds the potential of failure or success.In the layer cake of our household crap, my stuff is merely the icing. The substance of our clutter is a plastic carpeting of our daughter’s toys (largely of the Disney princess variety), which, like Houdini, cannot be restrained by any form of containment. They burst forth from their appointed cupboards and boxes to bring unicorn joy to every corner of the home, mysteriously covering all dark fabrics in a thin veneer of glitter, like it’s Sunday morning at some awful disco.
Her four-month-old brother brings his own brand of consumption overload, in the form of of scattered toe crushing bouncy chairs and bright squeaky things that we have yet to write thank you notes for. And blankets. Countless barf-covered blankets.And so, when the doorbell rings and a newly-wrapped present passes the threshold, my wife rolls her eyes at the latest addition to this cornucopia of tchochkes, and mourns once more that Marie Kondo dream of a sparse, perfectly joyful house.
A few years ago, as the online economy took off, a lot of gift-giving shifted to the intangible. People wanted to simultaneously fulfill our desire to give and receive, but without all that stuff. My birthday came and I wasn’t sent envelopes or boxes, but emails with gift credit to iTunes, a membership to a music streaming service and plenty of what people once called E-Cards
But something was missing: the material joy of actual presents.
Presents aren’t supposed to be easy. The effort required to think about and procure them can be arduous. It requires knowledge of both the market and the target, and relies on the strength of your own taste and the relationship with the recipient. But I draw great pleasure from the challenge.
Each gift is something I obsess over, as a tangible test of my relationship. The hunt is a gauntlet to run, but it’s half the fun. Sweating in a down jacket, wool hat and slush-covered boots in a bookstore, or, god forbid, shopping mall, searching for the things to tick off my list ... this is a test of the relationship at the core of the exchange.
Sure, I can effortlessly order the same thing online, maybe even for cheaper, but this challenge brings me out onto the streets. It forces me to get face to face with the holiday season, to wrestle down its schmaltzy optimism and even embrace it, finding some joy in the lights, the shop windows and the blast of Mariah Carey’s voice that will not stop chasing me, no matter what store I enter.
I also love the stakes of giving a real gift. When you email someone a present, the reaction is strictly textual, and largely neutral, like wishing someone “HBD” on Facebook, instead of calling them on their birthday. But when you present someone with a box, or an envelope, you enter a game, where every facial expression holds the potential of failure or success.The best moment is the very second someone takes a gift in their hand, and holds it for that brief, respectful second. It’s a moment full of pregnant wonder, when the wrapping could hide just about anything, and there’s a slight temptation to just leave it intact, in case reality ruins that hope.
But they do tear it open. We all do. Because while presents are cluttering, and wasteful, and largely destined to go back to the same store for a credit (or the thrift shop), they also embody something so irresistible about the human experience, that cannot be replicated virtually.
Gifts are one of the few symbols of love –that most ephemeral of feelings– that we can lay our hands on and pass on to others. They are tangible totems of something that gives us pleasure, and make us feel loved, and meaningful, no matter how irrational or selfish that sounds.
Please give to charity, do good works, and don’t clog the world with more stuff. But then be sure to give those who matter a little something they can hold. It means a lot to them, and to you.
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