Speaking to the Heart of Many Matters
May Something Said Here Touch Your Heart, Make You Laugh, or Give You Hope
For those of you who don’t receive my personally-created Yuletide card…
Sending you love, light, and a wish for your greatest happiness, at this season, sacred to so many spiritual paths, and for all time.
Please tell me in the Comments about any acts of kindness bequeathed to you this year.
If you have received an act of kindness from someone this year, please tell me about it in the Comments section.
This post (in its original form) first appeared in February this year, as I grieved my father’s death. In some spiritual traditions, one formally mourns a lost loved one for a year. This year, I have done my grieving publicly, using this blog as my vehicle of mourning, first for my father, then, unexpectedly, for my best friend. In just a few weeks, with one final post, Dad’s journey will be completed. Thank you, followers and readers, for walking this rocky path with me.
Shortly after taking down my Christmas tree and decorations, I start on my “First of Year Clean Out”. This event is separate and distinct from my spring cleaning, although a similar form of madness. But instead of attacking all the textiles—laundering curtains and pillows, blankets and throw rugs and quilts—and vacuuming, mopping and dusting little used or seen nooks and crannies and knick-knacks—instead of that, I attack paperwork. Rustling through the file cabinet, I toss old receipts and outdated files. I shred and sort and reassemble hard copy paperwork. Sifting through computer files, I delete mounds of unnecessary junk. Finally, I remove the big blue, oval carnival glass bowl from my china cabinet; the bowl where I have stored every card and note received during the previous year. Riffling through it, I remove all the birthday, thank you, get well, or various other cards that I’ve stored there. I read through them once more, appreciating and enjoying their messages. Then I return only a select few, the most precious of these, to the bowl before dropping the rest into the paper recycling bin.
But there is one group of cards which is never to be found in the carnival glass bowl: my Christmas cards. Far fewer these days, as rising postage costs deter sending cards, while for two years and some, quarantines, virus and lockdowns have prevented people from venturing out to purchase them, these cards, once read and enjoyed, are dropped into a winter white bucket, festively painted and decorated. At the end of Yuletide, when I “take down the Christmas”, I never remove my cards from the pail. Instead, cards and all, the bucket goes into storage with all the other decorations, awaiting another Christmas season.
Months later, on a day soon after Thanksgiving, the card pail again sees the light of day. Extracting it from where it lies nestled in the tub of garland and stockings, I take a break from my decorating and curl into an armchair, the container in my hands. Then, slowly, almost reverently, I remove the old cards and begin to reread them. Each is opened appreciatively as I scan handwritten messages and look at now-year-old enclosed family photos. Sometimes I re-read a letter included with the card, marveling at how much, and how little, has changed in the passing eleven months.
And often, I cry. For there, huddled within the standard, jolly or religious holiday greetings, lurks nostalgia and a touch of old pain: the card, cards, from those who have passed away during the intervening months. I open the pressboard to find and touch the loops and whorls of their signatures, once familiar, now never to be seen again.
One year, tears slipping down the curve of my face, I reread the letter, sent by surviving family members, describing the last weeks of a friend’s life. Denied (if he left the area of his medical service network) the dialysis he needed to survive, he went on one last vacation anyway, travelling to Hawaii for a few weeks. There he spent his final days in lush and gorgeous surroundings before returning home to close his eyes and die. I’d read this information in shock and dismay the year prior; this time I read it in renewed sadness, once more saying goodbye to a good and kind man.
In 2021, as I scanned the cards, I found included a host of pet sympathy cards, sent to comfort me for the loss of my best little cat just a few days prior to Christmas 2020. Bittersweet reminders of my sweet, mink-furred Bella hid there amongst the holiday greetings, drawing yet another tear or two and a sigh from the depths of my heart. I opened, too, the last Christmas card my father would ever send me—a simple card, probably a freebie received from one of the charities he supported. “Dad and Lucy Cat” he had signed it—the very Lucy cat whom I and other family members had spent six months looking after, as he slipped from hospital to care facility to death.
And so it was that this November I pulled the card pail out from the tub where it lay nested in garland and stockings. Carrying it to the new, uncomfortable armchair (the comfy old dark green one having gone to decrepit furniture heaven), I pulled out a card featuring an impossibly cheesy, adorable kitten peering from a Christmas stocking, and opened it to brush my fingertips one final time across the signature of my late, loved friend, Reneé. Cat Lady. “Reneé, Cymon, and Raja” the signature read, naming her beloved Sphinx and Persian cats as one would any family members, and I held the card to my heart for just a moment in a final goodbye to the very best friend of my lifetime.
Then, hands shaking just a little, I extracted all the condolence cards sent to comfort me for the loss of my father just a few days before Christmas during the 2021 holiday season. I mourned his passing once more, and then laughed a little, remembering how very much my Dad (although he would never say why!) hated Christmas! I recalled how, bringing a tiny decorated tree to him at his care facility, I was berated and scolded and told to “Get that thing the hell out of here!” I laughed one final time, shaking my head and rolling my eyes, considering his similarity to the pre-ghost Scrooge.
And then I placed them all, holiday greetings and expressions of sympathy, into the recycling bin, and, returning to my pleasant Christmas decorating, moved on.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like “Taking Down the Christmas”, which you can locate in the Archives, below, from January 3, 2020
November 13 will be World Kindness Day, and so I am revisiting this very applicable post from 2020.
In early November 2019, a local family initiated their holiday light display—an astounding and impressive effort; simply lovely. It was, perhaps, a tad early, but what with the invidious daylight savings time having begun two weekends prior, the winter nights were certainly quite long enough to make such a light show worthwhile. The family noted the display on our local neighborhood website, posting photos and inviting people to drive by and enjoy the spectacle. Several website members commented on the exceptional light show, and I punned that it was “delightful”.
But, as always seems to happen these days, a sourpuss (i.e., jackass!) simply had to comment. “This is a very secular display,” he groused. “Christmas without Christ is not Christmas.”
Other members quickly shut him down, pointing out that not only does not everyone celebrate Christmas, but that a light-up baby Jesus in the front yard really made no more of a statement than a reindeer; that religious beliefs were best celebrated in the home and the heart, not on one’s lawn, and not just at a particular season, but throughout the year; that at the holiday season it was best to be building people up, rather than tearing them down; and, finally, that whatever else it might be, the light display was certainly fun and festive and was bringing smiles to the faces of those witnessing it and wonder to the eyes of small children.
Nothing that was said to him, however, no matter how thoughtful or theologically sound, altered the Religious Grinch’s opinion; he remained stubbornly resistant to these various peacemakers, responding emphatically with his opinion that the light spectacle was insulting to the true meaning of Christmas while intimating that he felt picked upon for having stated his opinion.
Mindful of our ever-watchful website “Lead”, who had deleted my comments before, I merely replied with a carefully-pointed remark that I thought it was a lovely gesture that this family had taken so much time, effort, and expense to make so beautiful a display just ahead of World Kindness Day on November 13th. It seemed to me, I continued, a truly kind thing to create such beauty for one’s neighbors to enjoy, and I, for one, was most appreciative of their efforts. Then I private-messaged two of those who had made the most rational and courteous responses to the Religious Grinch, and told them how much I appreciated their efforts, receiving in reply their thanks, good wishes and blessings—blessings and good wishes that they also offered publicly to the Religious Grinch, and which were (perhaps not surprisingly) not returned by him.
Although my true thoughts remained unsaid on the website (at least by me; some others dared make some of these points), there were so many things I wanted to say to Mr. Religious Grinch. I wanted to suggest that perhaps the light display had been set up by a Hindu family celebrating a belated Diwali, not Christmas, or even a NeoPagan family whose spiritual holiday, celebrated with light, is not Christmas but Yule, the winter solstice. I didn’t know, I pondered, if light displays comprised part of the celebrations of Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, but those holidays, rather than Christmas, might be what the lights represented. Soyaluna, Saturnalia, Festivus—even the 6,000-year-old holiday of the Kemet Orthodoxy faith, called “The Return of the Wandering Goddess”, might be the reason behind the glorious twinkling and blinking and racing lights in the front yard of a neighborhood home.
I wanted, too, to ask Mr. Religious Grinch what he had done, or planned to do, to bring a smile to the lips of his neighbors during this holiday season; to provide them a moment’s joy. He certainly had not provided his good wishes to those on the website, so was he planning some other random act of kindness? How would he express his Christ of Christmas during the season? Would he speak a word of loving encouragement to someone sad and depressed, or haul an elderly neighbor’s trash bin through the snow to the curb on garbage collection day? Would he be dropping a dollar into a homeless person’s outstretched hand, or volunteering at a food pantry, or giving a contribution to a domestic violence shelter?
Finally, furiously, I typed my reply to Mr. Religious Grinch–the reply that (lest I become a Grinch myself!) I ever so carefully deleted before my finger, hovering anxiously over it, could press the SEND button:
“Well, sir, since this light show disturbs you so much, perhaps you should set up on your own lawn a very non-secular display, full of stables and Holy Families and angels and stars and Magi and shepherds and sheep and oxen—and YOU could be the ASS!”
If you enjoyed this, then you might also want to read, “The Ghosts of Christmas Trees Past”, which you can locate by scrolling to the Archives, below on this page. It was published on December 18, 2019.
I have somehow become suspected of being a walking Covid factory; the Wuhan Market in human form.
It would appear that I, quite innocently and without any evidence whatever, have become the Midwest’s greatest vector for disease transmission; the Typhoid Mary of Covid. To this I can only say that, not content with scything down a large portion of the population and rendering the rest ill for months with the long form of the disease, Covid has made people downright freaking crazy.
The first indication of my unwitting selection as the Great Disease Vector came in January, 2021. The vaccine had just been released, but was in short supply; only specific populations–the most elderly, those who looked after them, health workers, etc.–were given first shot (pun intended!) at vaccination. Several members of my family fell into those categories, though, and were promptly vaccinated. But I, plenty old but not quite elderly, was caught in a holding pattern, waiting for my chance at a shot to save my life. (It’s really a great pun.)
Now, some of our family members being Asian American, we have for many years celebrated Chinese New Year together. In 2021, that holiday arrived in January. Unfortunately, one of those family members had been ill with an undiagnosed mystery illness (think, possible long Covid following asymptomatic disease; think, with far less charity and a touch of irritation, just plain hypochondria). So when the celebration rolled around, the vaccinated family members were invited. I, however, was warned by the most officious member of the family that I was a danger to the sick person, since he, along with his wife and three children, were too young to be vaccinated. Don’t come! I was ordered.
I did as bidden and stayed home, heartbroken. Only much later did it occur to me that, as a lifelong asthmatic, I was in a great deal more danger from two unvaccinated adults and three unvaccinated children than they were from me. But, hey, who was I, Covid Carrie, to quarrel?
Finally, the vaccine was released to those of my age category and (after a mighty battle with the website—for the love of heaven! Despite having come to tech so late that I actually learned to type on a manual typewriter, I could and did design numerous databases during my final two decades at the office, all of which functioned one helluva lot better than the joke perpetrated upon a helpless populace by the Indiana State Board of Health! But I digress….) I finally received my first vaccine and began the tortuous waiting period for the second shot.
Meanwhile, unfortunately, Easter rolled around. A gathering was planned once again with Mr. Mystery Illness and his kin, and I was warned, “You’re a danger to him. You’ve only had one shot. Don’t come.” You’re a walking Covid factory. You’re the Wuhan Market in human form. Stay away, Covid Carrie. I sighed and spent Easter visiting a homebound relative.
The world kept turning, and I, now both fully vaccinated and extremely careful, did not fall ill of Covid. In fact, when boosters became available in October, I rushed to get one, standing in line for over an hour despite having arrived early to my appointment. Nothing was going to keep me from that booster! When Thanksgiving landed, by God, I was going to be ready: vaccinated, boosted, mask-wearing, crowd-avoiding and hand sanitizer using me!
I hadn’t counted, though, on yet another family member. Despite every argument we flung at him, despite seeing that the vaccine had done the rest of us no harm, my son-in-law was adamantly an anti-vaxxer. Once more I was given an ultimatum: I could come to Thanksgiving dinner, but my daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter could not, due to his unvaccinated status (the possibility of his testing negative using one of the now readily-available home tests was not even discussed). Choking on my tears, I made my Sophie’s Choice, deciding, of course, in favor of my daughter and her little family. I had, after all, promised my baby granddaughter when she was no more than twelve hours old that I would always protect her, even to giving my life for hers. Giving up Thanksgiving seemed quite minor by comparison.
After all this, then, it came as no surprise to me this summer when I was barred from yet another gathering, this time of friends. I’d been exposed to Covid several days before our luncheon was planned to take place, and was upfront about that with everyone. But, I offered, I would test both the day before and the morning of the luncheon; I would wear a mask, and not order or eat, so I would not have to take it off; I would just join them at the table to bask in the joy of being with friends.
We can’t risk it, I was told.
Accustomed at this point to my status as a pariah, I was saddened, but neither upset nor surprised. My friends met for luncheon in an enclosed restaurant space, surrounded by strangers of uncertain vaccination, health, and testing status, and I remained at home.
Still, I find it odd that, having not yet (I will not dare say never!) fallen to Covid despite being directly exposed to it now over four times, I should somehow have acquired the weighty status of the Great Midwestern Disease Vector. As I say, looking at the anti-vax and vaccine wars, the lockdowns and protests, the attacks on mask wearers and mask refusers, as well as what I have experienced, it would seem that Covid’s true legacy is not actually death and destruction, but simple, plain, insanity.
For another viewpoint on my experiences with Covid, you might appreciate “No Pleasure in Being Right”, which you can locate by scrolling down to the Archives. It was published September 1, 2021.
Slowly, almost reverently, I remove the old cards and begin to reread them.
Shortly after taking down my Christmas tree and decorations, I start on my “First of Year Clean Out”. This event is separate and distinct from my spring cleaning, although a similar form of madness. But instead of attacking all the textiles—laundering curtains and pillows, blankets and throw rugs and quilts—and vacuuming, mopping and dusting little used or seen nooks and crannies and knick-knacks—I attack paperwork. Rustling through the file cabinet, I toss old receipts and outdated files. I shred and sort and reassemble hard copy paperwork. Sifting through computer files, I delete mounds of unnecessary junk. Finally, I remove the big blue, oval carnival glass bowl from my china cabinet; the bowl where I have stored every card and note received during the previous year. Riffling through it, I remove all the birthday, thank you, get well, or various other cards that I’ve stored there. I read through them once more, appreciating and enjoying their messages. Then I return only a select few, the most precious of these, to the bowl before dropping the rest into the waste paper basket—or, in these later years, the paper recycling bin.
But there is one group of cards which is never to be found in the carnival glass bowl: my Christmas cards. Far fewer these days, as rising postage costs deter sending cards, while quarantines, virus and lockdowns keep people from venturing out to purchase them, these cards, once read and enjoyed, are dropped into a winter white bucket festively painted and decorated. At the end of Yuletide, when I “take down the Christmas”, I never remove my cards from the pail. Instead, cards and all, the bucket goes into storage with all the other decorations, awaiting another Christmas season.
Months later, on a day soon after Thanksgiving, the card pail again sees the light of day. Extracting it from where it lies nestled in the tub of garland and stockings, I take a break from my decorating and curl into an armchair, the container in my hands. Then, slowly, almost reverently, I remove the old cards and begin to reread them. Each is opened appreciatively as I scan handwritten messages and look at now-year-old enclosed family photos. Sometimes I re-read a letter included with the card, marveling at how much, and how little, has changed in the passing eleven months.
And often, I cry. For there, huddled within the standard, jolly or religious holiday greetings, lurks nostalgia and a touch of old pain: the card, cards, from those who have passed away during the intervening year. I open the pressboard to find and touch the loops and curves of their signatures, once familiar, now never to be seen again.
One year, tears slipping down the curve of my face, I reread the letter, sent by surviving family members, describing the last weeks of a friend’s life. Denied (if he left the area of his medical service network) the dialysis he needed to survive, he went on one last vacation anyway, travelling to Hawaii for a few weeks. There he spent his final days in lush and gorgeous surroundings before returning home to close his eyes and die. I’d read this information in shock and dismay the year prior; this time I read it in renewed sadness, once more saying goodbye to a good and kind man.
In 2021, as I scanned the cards, I found included a host of pet sympathy cards, sent to comfort me for the loss of my best little cat just before the prior Christmas. Bittersweet reminders of my sweet, mink-furred Bella hid there amongst the holiday greetings, drawing yet another sigh and a tear or two from the depths of my heart. I opened, too, the last Christmas card my father would ever send me—a simple card, probably a freebie received from one of the charities he supported. “Dad and Lucy Cat” he had signed it—the very Lucy cat whom I and other family members had spent six months looking after, as he slipped from hospital to care facility to death.
This November, should I be here to do so, I will lift the card pail out from its nest of garland and stockings and, carrying it to the armchair, extract all the condolence cards sent to comfort me for the loss of my father during the 2021 holiday season. I will mourn his passing once more, and then laugh a little, remembering how very much my Dad hated Christmas! I will recall how, bringing a tiny decorated tree to him at his care facility, I was berated and scolded and told to “Get that thing the hell out of here!” I’ll laugh one final time, shaking my head and rolling my eyes, remembering his Scroogism.
And then I will place them all, holiday greetings and expressions of sympathy, into the recycling bin, and, returning to my Christmas decorating, move on.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like “Taking Down the Christmas”, which you can locate in the Archives, below, from January 3, 2018.
For all of you who may read this blog, but not be a part of my holiday card list, a greeting to share with you. Merry whatever doesn’t offend you!
It’s not just toxic recipients that one has to deal with at the holiday season. Perfectionists and critical relatives add a whole ‘nother layer of angst!
My late mother-in-law was a marvelous woman in many respects. One of the things I most envied about her, though, was her artistic ability.
Never was this ability more evident than at the holiday season. A tray of gorgeous glass ornaments and greenery accenting a sideboard; a transparent vase filled with shining beads, artfully wound in graceful spirals and spilling in perfect draped arcs from the rim… Mary’s decorations were breathtaking.
Her gift wrap, too, was spectacular. Presents might all be wrapped in glossy white paper with tartan ribbons and real holly one year; the next, each would be covered in a harmonizing paper. Even the tags matched.
Now, I dearly love Christmas and am no slouch with the decorations, but I could never begin to equal Mary’s artistic flourishes. My gifts are nicely wrapped, but haphazard, and the best one might call my décor is cheerful. Mary always seemed pleased, though, with the gifts I presented her, no matter how irregularly wrapped, and praised my decorations sincerely each holiday season. I genuinely appreciated her compliments, since I was all too well aware of just how much better she did things.
This came to mind during a recent holiday season as I tried to wrap an extremely large gift. I had only one roll of giftwrap of the right width for the present, which was heavy and unwieldy. I’d had quite a bit of trouble maneuvering it onto the paper and getting the wrapping around it, but was finally working on closing the ends when the box shifted in my hands. The result was a tear across the underside of the gift wrap. It was easily enough mended with tape, but as I finished wrapping the box, I had a sudden flashback to a story told me years ago by two women at the office where I worked.
One young woman, I recalled, was both working and attending college, and couldn’t afford to travel home for Christmas. The other coworker—let’s call her Charity, because that fits–kindly invited Carol (since that seems right for Christmas) to join her family for the holiday.
Carol came gladly, armed, as a good guest, with a pie and a gift for her hostess and a bottle of wine. But she also came armed with a distinct sense of justice and a great dislike for bullies.
Because that’s what Charity’s mother was: a bully. Unendingly critical of her daughter, she found fault in every tiny flaw and found flaws where they did not even exist. Mom was one nasty ticket, and saw no reason to alter her behavior just because of the season of loving and giving.
But Mom hadn’t counted on Carol.
Arriving in a flurry of snow and smiles, Carol presented her hostess with the pie and wine. As Charity’s friend, Carol was already blacklisted, so Mom pounced. “I don’t suppose anyone,” (here looking directly at Charity) “informed you that my husband is severely diabetic,” she grumbled. “We always avoid sugary desserts at family dinners.”
“Is that so?” Carol countered coolly. “Well, I’m sorry he can’t indulge, but surely the rest of us can enjoy the pie.”
“And I, of course,” Mom continued without pausing for breath, “am a non-drinker.”
Carol smiled. “My Dad’s a non-drinker, too. But he never begrudges everyone else a little tipple at the holidays. Says his choice is no reason for the rest of us to be deprived.”
Apparently realizing that Carol was no easy target, Mom backed down until the gifts were handed ‘round. As one of those irritating people who carefully slit tape and preserve the giftwrap, she turned over her gift from Charity to carefully unwrap it and discovered, yes, a torn and mended corner.
“Really, Charity!” she berated the girl. “I can’t believe you didn’t take the time to start over and do it properly when you spoiled this gift wrap!”
Everyone was silent at Mom’s outburst, glancing with embarrassment at Carol. More than equal to the occasion, though, Carol merely smiled and handed Charity the gift she’d brought: an oddly-shaped package, covered in reams of tape barely holding together giftwrap composed of the Sunday newspaper comics and tied with a colorful shoestring. “Sorry about the way it looks, Charity,” Carol chirped. “Wrapping paper just wasn’t in my budget. But on the day when generosity of spirit rules, I know you’ll forgive me!”
I don’t recall how the rest of the story concluded: whether dinner was a delight or a disaster, or if Mom managed to choke down—or on–a piece of pie, or her own bile. But I do know that Charity and Carol remained fast friends for the rest of the time I knew them.
As I say, the whole memory came to mind as I slapped tape every which way over the gift for my kids. I sure they didn’t even notice as they tore the giftwrap in excitement from the box.
And, in the season of loving and giving, that’s just as things should be.
If you enjoyed this essay, you might also like “Second Hand Rose”, which can be found in the Archives from July 1, 2020.
I decided to rerun this post from January, 2020, because…well, because!
In early November (2019), a local family initiated their holiday light display—an astounding and impressive effort; simply lovely. It was, perhaps, a tad early, but what with the invidious daylight savings time having begun two weekends prior, the winter nights were certainly quite long enough to make such a light show worthwhile. They noted the display on our local neighborhood website, posting photos and inviting people to drive by and enjoy the spectacle. Several website members commented on the exceptional light show, and I punned that it was “delightful”.
But, as always seems to happen these days, a sourpuss simply had to comment. “This is a very secular display,” he groused. “Christmas without Christ is not Christmas.”
Other members quickly shut him down, pointing out that not only does not everyone celebrate Christmas, but that a light-up baby Jesus in the front yard really made no more of a statement than a reindeer; that religious beliefs were best celebrated in the home and the heart, not on one’s lawn, and not just at a particular season, but throughout the year; that at the holiday season it was best to be building people up, rather than tearing them down; and, finally, that whatever else it might be, the light display was certainly fun and festive and was bringing smiles to the faces of those witnessing it and wonder to the eyes of children.
Nothing that was said to him, however, no matter how thoughtful or theologically sound, altered the Religious Grinch’s opinion; he remained stubbornly resistant to these various peaceful remarks, responding emphatically with his opinion that the light spectacle was insulting to the true meaning of Christmas and intimating that he felt picked upon for having stated his opinion.
Mindful of our ever-watchful website “Lead”, who had deleted my comments before, I merely replied with a carefully-pointed remark that I thought it was a lovely gesture that this family had taken so much time, effort, and expense to make so beautiful a display just ahead of World Kindness Day on November 13th. It seemed to me, I continued, a truly kind thing to create such beauty for one’s neighbors to enjoy, and I, for one, was most appreciative of their efforts. Then I private-messaged two of those who had made the most rational and courteous responses to the Religious Grinch, and told them how much I appreciated their efforts, receiving in reply their thanks, good wishes and blessings—blessings and good wishes that they also offered publicly to the Religious Grinch, and which were (perhaps not surprisingly) not returned by him.
Although my true thoughts remained unsaid on the website (at least by me; some others dared make some of these points), there were so many things I wanted to say to Mr. Religious Grinch. I wanted to suggest that perhaps the light display had been set up by a Hindu family celebrating a belated Diwali, not Christmas, or even a NeoPagan family whose spiritual holiday, celebrated with light, is not Christmas but Yule, the winter solstice. I didn’t know, I pondered, if light displays comprised part of the celebrations of Hanukah or Kwanzaa, but those holidays, rather than Christmas, might be what the lights represented. Soyaluna, Saturnalia, Festivus—even the 6,000-year-old holiday of the Kemet Orthodoxy faith, called “The Return of the Wandering Goddess”, might be the reason behind the glorious twinkling and blinking and racing lights in the front yard of a neighborhood home.
I wanted, too, to ask Mr. Religious Grinch what he had done, or planned to do, to bring a smile to the lips of his neighbors during this holiday season; to provide them a moment’s joy. He certainly had not provided his good wishes to those on the website, so was he planning some other random act of kindness? How would he express his Christ of Christmas during the season? Would he speak a word of loving encouragement to someone sad and depressed, or haul an elderly neighbor’s trash bin through the snow to the curb? Would he be dropping a dollar into a homeless person’s outstretched hand, or volunteering at a food pantry, or giving a contribution to a domestic violence shelter?
Finally, furiously, I typed my reply to Mr. Religious Grinch–the reply that (lest I become a Grinch myself!) I ever so carefully deleted before my finger, hovering anxiously over it, could press the SEND button:
“Well, sir, since this light show disturbs you so much, perhaps you should set up on your own lawn a very non-secular display, full of stables and Holy Families and angels and stars and Magi and shepherds and sheep and oxen—and YOU could be the ASS!”
If you enjoyed this essay, you might also like to read “The Ghosts of Christmas Trees Past” from December 18, 2019. You can scroll down to the Archives link to locate it.
As the holiday season approaches, it seems the perfect time to rerun this blog post from 2019, regarding those people who, no matter what gift is given, are never quite pleased.
As we will soon be enduring the gift-giving whirl of the holiday season, it’s probably the perfect time to discuss the situation of Toxic Recipients.
Most of us have known one…and many of us, unfortunately, still do: the person who, no matter what gift is given, is never quite pleased. Who is not only displeased, but vocal about her or his displeasure. (The dress is an unflattering style; the shirt is the wrong color. The membership to the local museum is a waste of money—after all, no one goes to the museum more than one time yearly. Movie tickets? The movies these days are all trash. There’s nothing worth seeing. Ditto the restaurant gift card; don’t you know how much that place has gone downhill?)
As to why these individuals behave this way, well, that is a topic for another blog post. But in an attempt to please a TR, friends and family (having exhausted all the usual avenues for gift ideas), often turn to creativity, sure that something handcrafted, homemade, will be given the respect due the work put into it, if not the gift itself. Homemade bath bombs and salt scrubs, hand-knitted sweaters, carefully-constructed photo journals, “just add water” recipe jars, handcrafted suncatchers, redeem-at-will coupons for yard work, home repairs, chauffeuring, babysitting… But all are rejected with a roll of the eyes and a heavy sigh, or a scathing comment about a how a flagrant misuse of their funds must have resulted in a limited budget for gifts this year.
A gift card to a favorite store? Couldn’t be bothered to shop, could you? Cash? Giving money is the biggest cop-out ever! Fresh flowers? What a waste—the damned things don’t last any time at all; they just wilt. A gift made to a charity in one’s name? Don’t you realize that NOW that self-same charitable organization will be dunning the honoree for donations at every possible turn? A planter? Who has time to take care of plants? A spa gift card? One has to tip the staff at those places, you know!
I recall a story once told me by a coworker: Her family was sure they had finally hit upon the absolutely perfect gift for their Toxic Recipient Matriarch. They contacted an astronomical society and had a star named for her. Now there was a present that couldn’t be topped! It was, in fact, sky-high.
The Matriarch’s reaction to this gift was, as they recounted afterward, a true Mastercard moment: utterly priceless. Upon opening the certificate, she read it through twice—the first time uncomprehending, the second time, in patent disbelief. Then she pinioned her hapless family with a gimlet stare and, tossing the certificate toward the discarded wrapping paper, demanded, “Just what the hell am I supposed to do with this?!”
So…. My humble suggestion to all of those trapped in the hellish round of attempting to please a Toxic Recipient on every birthday, anniversary, holiday, or whatever, is just this: Stop. Stop trying. Stop giving. And, above all, stop caring.
Give a gift with the store receipt prominently displayed, and when the TR comments upon the tackiness of this behavior, merely shrug and say, “Well, we knew you’d hate it, since you always hate everything we give you, so we were just making it easy for you to return it.” Or show up empty handed, and mention casually and with total unconcern that your financial circumstances right now limit gift giving to small children only. Or, when the poisonous remarks about your gift begin to be spouted, throw up your hands and recount a laundry list of past gift failures. “Well, let’s see. You didn’t like the pink blouse/blue shirt. You used the restaurant gift certificate, and then gave us a blow-by-blow description of how poor the food and service were. You never even used the zoo membership. You didn’t cash in on our “a full day of yard work” coupon. You said the tool set was cheap. You never got a pedicure at the spa. You told us the year of gym membership was just our way of saying you were fat. So it was this,” (here making a dramatic gesture toward the most recently-rejected gift), “or purchasing your funeral plot. Of the two, we thought this was better.”
Of course, this last statement is likely to result in one’s being cut out of the will, or thrown out of the house, or banished from the family, or treated to an Amish-style shunning, or some other such volatile gesture of utter disdain.
Which, come to think of it, might not be so bad a result after all.
If you enjoyed this blog post, you might also like “Apples of Gold”, which may be found in the Archives from November 20, 2019.
Sometimes we have to defy those silly “rules” about what’s appropriate for a particular time or season.
Several years back, I was shopping in the late winter and happened upon a long- after-Christmas sale. A lone ornament caught my eye: a sparkly chandelier. It sported plastic crystal droplets and faintly-pink sparkles and fake candles; it was adorable and unusual and 75% off. So, although it had absolutely nothing in common with my then-red-and-gold themed Christmas tree, I bought the ornament.
The following Christmas season, I hung the pink chandelier ornament from the tip of my real dining room chandelier. Now, here I must pause to explain that I detest my dining room chandelier. It was there when I bought my little condo but, as I mentioned in Coloring Our World, the previous owner of my home had, shall we say, unusual taste in décor (read: no taste at all). Although obviously very expensive, the chandelier is totally out of place in my ivory and pink and Wedgwood blue dining room. One might say it resembles something borrowed from a medieval castle. One might…if one were being polite. But the darned thing serves its purpose—to light the room—and I am nothing if not thrifty and practical, so I have never replaced it. Nevertheless, I only tolerate the chandelier. I don’t really like it.
So hanging the shimmering little pink chandelier ornament from the tip of the medieval monstrosity was an act of defiance. It said, “This is what you’re supposed to look like, you ugly thing!”
Weeks later, as I was packing up all my holiday decorations (or, as I’ve always called it, “Taking Down the Christmas”), I missed the chandelier ornament. A day or two later, I discovered it still hanging from the tip of the feudal fake. I reached to remove it, but hesitated. I didn’t want to bother rustling up the correct box of Christmas decorations out in the garage; I didn’t feel like wrapping the ornament and putting it away. So I just left it dangling there, the chandelier-on-the-chandelier.
Of course, this wasn’t the first time some small bit of Christmas detritus had been overlooked during the post-Christmas cleanup. I recall the time that a plastic icicle lived an entire year in a plant pot where I stuck it after stumbling upon it days after the tree came down. Then there were the two small silver stars that I discovered in a corner, probably batted there by a marauding cat as playthings. I stuck them on wires and wore them as earrings.
But, returning to the chandelier, later that summer, as my young great niece and nephew, Mya and Kai, ate lunch with me one afternoon, Mya glanced at the glimmering little decoration and asked me, “Is that a Christmas ornament?” A bit abashed, I agreed that it was. I explained I’d forgotten to take it down in January and decided to just leave it up. “I like it,” Mya pronounced judiciously. “It’s sparkly!”
Enter the holiday season of 2020. Although I did not splash out on anything extra, I decorated early and fiercely, trying to brighten my spirits during the sadness of the lonely, anxiety-ridden pandemic Christmas. I brought out decorations that I hadn’t bothered with for years, when my motto had been, “If you put it up, you’re gonna have to take it down!” Now, in the Year From Hell, taking everything down a month hence seemed a small price to pay for having some light and beauty around my home. So the shimmering little chandelier came out of hiding once more and returned to the tip of the ugly lighting fixture.
But on January 2, sighing as I packed away holly garland and lights, tree skirt and ornaments and icicles and candles, I deliberately and with grave intent left the glistening little chandelier ornament hanging from the tip of my lighting fixture. Because it was bright. Because the house, stripped of all the holiday decorations, felt as bare and sorrowful and depressing as the continuing pandemic. Because that tiny bit of sparkling joy felt just a little bit like hope.
Hope… The hope that I will, next December, still be here to unpack all my Christmas things and splash them about the rooms once more. The hope, now showing promise, that the vaccine will bring an end to the horror and devastation of Covid-19. The faint and dimming hope that a new administration will be able to somehow mend the divisive anger and furious accusations of a divided American populace, unifying us once more. The hope that those I love will be safe and protected through whatever the year hurls at us.
So the little chandelier will remain hanging above my dining table for another year.
Because hope sparkles.
If this post resonated with you, you might also like “Taking Down the Christmas”,
which was posted January 3, 2018, or “Puffy Socks Finds a Home (Sort of a Pandemic Story)”, from June 17, 2020. Scroll down the page to the Archives link to locate them.
Speaking to the Heart of Many Matters 