Advice from a small town girl

I’ve always been one of those annoying Christmas people. You know, when you’re feeling all growly and grumpy, they’re the ones almost skipping down the sidewalk. They have a goofy smile on their face, and if you’re close enough, you can hear the Christmas carols they’re humming.

I used to love finishing up my shopping on Christmas Eve. I loved hanging out with all the other desperate people at the mall, trying to find the least embarrassing gift for that last hard-to-shop-for person on your list.

I pretty much don’t do that anymore.

My family has gone from gifts for everyone to one gift. This has evolved (or perhaps devolved) over the past 30 years. When we first decided to stop shopping for everyone in the family, we drew names and made the gifts ourselves. That lasted about a year, after which we bowed to the wishes of the uncreative and just started buying gifts. Anyone who hadn’t graduated high school yet was exempt, and still got lots of presents.

There’s always someone who isn’t particularly happy with any program. After I got my incredibly-hard-to-shop-for brother’s name three years in a row in the drawing, I asked a friend to keep a chart for us (now, that was just crazy), ensuring that no one got the same name twice in a certain number of years.

Good grief.

Now we just buy one gift each. If you’re male, you bring a “guy gift” and if you’re female . . . well, you get the drift.

Then, of course, there are the “stocking stuffers.”

Because we can’t buy just one gift. They’re kind of like potato chips.

And because we don’t want to buy just one gift.

You know how there are some people who are easy to buy for. I see hundreds of things I know my sister would love. I’m lucky if I see two things that might not offend the rest of the family.

Really, it’s not that bad, but give it some thought.

I’m pretty sure that I’m one of the easy-to-buy-for people. I give lots of hints, and have lots of interests.

Some of the people I love aren’t so easy. They rarely say anything along the lines of “That would come in handy” or “Wow! That’s cool,” or “I sure like grilling.” And frequently, about three weeks before Christmas, they go buy everything they need that I was thinking of getting them.

This is starting to sound like I’m complaining.

Well, I sort of am complaining.

So now I’m going to stop complaining and just give notice: If you’re one of those people who keeps your wishes secret, you might not like what’s under the tree.