[Day 130] One chance

Today’s holiday topic: Gifts! Specifically, gift giving.

I’ll be honest, I enjoy opening presents. I enjoy having new teeshirts to show off and new music to jam to. But what I like most of all is giving gifts. A lot of people say this, yes, I know. They like sounding like they’re good citizens who think only of others. I’d like to call BS, if that’s alright.

I don’t like giving gifts because it looks good, and I don’t like giving gifts because people are more inclined to give me gifts back (as this usually is untrue anyways). No, I like giving gifts because I like the satisfaction that my gift is not only a good one, but it meant something.

Examples:

Bart: I gave Bart three different kinds of pasta salad. On a bus on our way to a debate tournament, we played a game in which one of us would hold our hand to the freezing cold window and ask the other person questions about ourselves. For example, I might ask Bart who my first celebrity crush was (Jake Lloyd, fyi), and if he got it wrong, he only had four more wrong answers until I stuck my hand down his back. It sounds weird, but this same bizarre manner is how we carry out most of our friendship. Anyways, one of his questions was his favorite food, and I guessed bacon. “Close,” he smirked, “but it’s pasta salad.”

I decided that this would be an appropriate gift on several levels; first, it proved I was listening to him. Second, it’s of immediate use to him since he ships out in exactly a month. Third, it would make him smile. And it did.

His reaction: I accompanied the food with a sappy letter about how grateful I was for his friendship, which he gave me a big hug for. Bart’s not one to show his feelings much, but I think he has a soft spot for my dramatic and sometimes self-destructive tendencies. Anyways, after stroking the bacon flavor pasta salad (I knew it was a good decision), he gave me another hug and smile. I put that smile on his face, and that felt better than any gift I could have gotten.

My parents: …love games. Every year, they give both my brother and I at least one game, which we play immediately afterwards. I wandered around the game store at the mall for a good fifteen minutes trying to find Rummicube, which is one of my mom’s favorite games. Our version is broken down and old, but unfortunately the lady at the store told me they were sold out. So I picked out a game that really only my parents would be able to play together; something about being at least 30 years old. I accompanied this gift with a note saying that they’d need something to entertain themselves with after I went to college.

My mom cried. I think this speaks for itself.

These are just two examples, but I think they’re representative. Giving gifts is more fun than getting them, because I don’t get a warm fuzzy feeling from a $25 iTunes gift card.