Merry Christmas!

Seems late for Christmas, right? Not in our house. Discussions of gift giving reverberate through the whole year. And have for many years. There is my husband’s great revelation that I give gifts I think the receiver should want, but not what the receiver actually does want. Then there is the issue that Matthew’s gifts are always “almost” but not quite right.

Christmas 2007. My gifts to him: Bowl of Cherries, by Millard Kaufman and Comedy by the Numbers, by Eric Hoffman and Gary Rudoren. While he admits that Comedy by the Numbers was dead-on gift-perfection hilarious, he also told me he doesn’t like books as gifts. Let’s see, other recent gift purchases by Christine for Matthew: What Ever Happened to Orson Welles?: A Portrait of an Independent Career, by Joseph McBride, Christmas 2006, and Monkey Portraits, by Jill Greenberg, Valentine’s Day 2008.

My logic behind these was that Matthew loves slap-stick comedy (got that one right at least), Orson Welles, and monkeys. Turns out Matthew didn’t care as much for the foremost contemporary Welles biography as I thought he would. And monkeys? He loves monkeys. Why wouldn’t he love a book of monkeys? He said, “It’s pictures. You look at it once and then you put it away.” Ouch. I thought it was genius.

He loves video games. This morning, as I walked out the door, we agreed that in the future of all gift-giving situations he will make me a list of the video games he wants to be given. That’s the most unromantic gift situation I can imagine, but whatever is going to keep us sane is what is going to work.

But, wait! Matthew’s not innocent either!

I won’t get into details because that’s shitty to slander him on my blog where I reduce him to defenseless words, but I’ll give you one example. All I wanted for Christmas was this stuffed sheep. I begged for it. I sent out more than one Christmas list e-mail saying how badly I needed the sheep. Not only did no one who read my Christmas wish list get me a sheep, but neither did Matthew. When you demand a sheep, don’t you expect at least your husband to get you a sheep? I loved the sheep so much, I even gave a frog as a Christmas gift to someone else (who loved it like I would have loved a sheep).

What did I get instead? Silver earrings. This may sound nice, but there are two reasons this gift flopped with me, one practical and one medical. First, my sheep was half the price of the earrings, and he was seriously over-charged for the earrings he got. Second, I’m allergic to most metals and can only wear silver earrings for a few hours. So these expensive earrings would then be useful only at special occasions where I could wear them for a few hours and then take them out immediately, when I would next hit the cortisone cream and Benadryl. The sheep I would have used every single night.

Anyway, we’re all guilty. I want to give gifts that reflect me and my tastes so that I can share myself with the gift receiver, but Matthew claims I’m wrong and that no one gets what they actually want from me. I don’t know which of us is actually right—I still think there is a part of the giver in the gift—but I know that in the future we’re sticking to the play list. No more surprises, since the surprise always leads to disappointment.

So ho-ho-ho, merry effing Christmas, quite late.