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Christmas presents come from
the strangest people
By
Jen Beasley
December 10, 2007 | In your family, Christmas presents
probably come from Santa Claus, Uncle Larry, or maybe
Baby Jesus. In mine, they come from April Norman.
Now I don't know her personally, but April Norman
was a high school classmate with whom my sister had
a falling out of mysterious and slightly cloudy origin.
I was too young to even remember this girl, but when
my sister would complain about her, my mother would
say "April speaks very highly of you." One year that
was proven resoundingly, when all of my sister's gifts
were from April Norman herself! And now every year April,
that generous soul, bestows my entire family with a
wealth of scarves and CDs and decorative pottery.
Wherever she is, she must be doing fabulously. We
always praise her kindness. I don't think she even knew
me.
And it's not just April. We get presents from the
strangest people.
Orrin Hatch never fails to think of my dad around
Christmas, in spite of their wars years ago when Dad
battled Hatch on Forest Service matters. My Mom is always
gifted by Rosie O'Donnell, Joy Bahar, and pretty much
the entire past and present cast of The View,
in spite of her rather insistent distaste for them.
I mean, they're obviously nice ladies. I don't know
what my Mom's deal is.
And for my part, I get presents from Voldemort-style
ex-boyfriends, Vladimir Putin and Richard Simmons.
It's quite baffling. All the people we hate give us
presents. And none of our loved ones do.
In fact, our own family shuns us completely. Nobody
in our clan gets a gift from anyone else, so confused
and grateful for whatever ribboned bauble we receive,
we just smile and say thank you to the entire room,
because unfortunately, Sally, the demon swimming teacher
of my youth, never shows up to be thanked.
Now the gifts aren't really from any of those people,
of course, but it's a nice system of giving for three
reasons: One, at our house it has completely ceased
to be important what you give someone or how much it
costs. All the presents are from someone else anyhow.
All the gratitude flows around equally, in anonymity.
Two, we get a good laugh because it really makes no
sense that my mom hates Crystal Gayle's voice so much.
In fact, it's possible that more thought is given to
what hilarious enemy to put on the gift tag then to
the gift inside.
And three, it spreads a little love even to the least-loved
people in our lives. When I was young, Scottie Pippen
was just a teensy bit more bearable when he gave me
a super-fast sled, despite his second-annual crushing
of the championship dreams of my beloved Utah Jazz.
Dad has to admit that for all their mismatched politics,
George W. sure does know his taste in Western shirts.
And none of us can remember quite what it was that was
so bad about April Norman.
So wherever you are, April, thanks for everything.
And Merry Christmas.
NW
MS |
