O P I N I O N
My wife and I were driving to a studio in Londonderry to pick up our daughter’s senior portraits. While not technically Christmas shopping, it was backdoor Christmas shopping.
Liz was heading to Michael’s after picking up the pictures to buy frames so that “we”— I’m using the plural pronoun here, but in truth, she buys the gifts then signs my name to it — could give them to our parents as Christmas gifts.
Our parents adore our daughter, and she looked beautiful in her pictures so I didn’t mind the shopping. When a gift is thoughtful and will genuinely make the recipient happy, the tiny sliver of coal in the center of my chest momentarily glows.
We were passing the apple orchard where “we” picked apples and bought pumpkins a month and a half ago. I was staring out the car window, thinking about placing a bet on Monday Night Football but my Venmo account — which I use for gambling — was bordering on bankrupt after buying Christmas gifts.
“So what did ‘we’ get everyone else?” I asked my wife.
“I got most people gift cards,” she said. “It’s what they wanted.”
“Wait a second,” I said, shaking my head. “Can we talk about gift cards?”
Liz rolled her eyes. “Can you save the diatribe, please? Why don’t you write it down and I’ll read it instead of listening to you rant off for the next 15 minutes?”
So here it is, folks: my diatribe on Christmas gift cards.
For starters, I believe that we need to collectively reconsider the current Christmas gift-giving paradigm. Most people who exchange gifts —other than the affluent—drain their bank account each December buying things for people that are largely superfluous and mostly meaningless.
Sure, if you want to buy a turkey for Bob Cratchit’s family to cook on Christmas Day, I’m all for it. Or if you want to buy gifts for those who have none — particularly children — I encourage it.
But Christmas gift-giving, to me, seems to devolve into more demarcations between the “have’s” and “have not’s” in this country, which is antithetical to the spirit of the season.
I’m not trying to get my socialist rocks off here, but I suggest we adopt a more sensible model of holiday celebration, similar to many European countries, where only the children receive modest gifts and the adults hit the “pause” button for a few days to share a meal and company with loved ones.
Which brings me to Christmas gift cards.
Gift cards are the sterile offerings, and they also undermine the message of the season.
Collectively, we’ve decided that an arbitrary date on a Gregorian calendar—for many Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ, which most historians believe was either in the spring or early summer—to bless one another with the privilege of surfing Amazon or heading to Bath and Body Works, Applebees or some other billion-dollar corporation.
(Local businesses get a pass, but they should also be supported year-round, not just during the week of the winter solstice.)
And why exactly do we feel the need to buy gift cards that most can barely afford on a date whose veracity is apocryphal at best?
I’d rather people write checks to one another, as opposed to lining Jeff Bezos’s pockets with more cash than he’ll ever spend, unless he happens to marry and divorce another philanthropist (hat-tip, Mackenzie Scott).
I completely understand that most people give gifts out of love and kindness, but many others feel the need to extend themselves beyond their budgets out of social obligation. Again, let’s change this paradigm and buy gifts for the people who are important in our lives when we can afford it and the urge strikes us to give—even in August.
So, Liz, there’s my diatribe, and I love you and look forward to spending a quiet Christmas together with our immediate family and Zooming with those we can’t see this year.
