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Home > Blogs > Women's Life > Archives > 2010 > December > 25
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Bonding over Christmas gifts, dinner
Something I try to do when I buy gifts for those closest to me is reflect something significant or new in that person’s life over the past year or two.
My entire family enjoys the comic strip “Pearls Before Swine,” but my mother and I have formed a sort of inside joke related to the strip - we call each other “zeeba,” which is how the crocodiles in the cartoon pronounce “zebra.” We started using the nicknames “Zeeba Momma” and “Zeeba Daughta” in 2009, and have continued signing our e-mails to each other with variations on the zeeba theme over the past year. So I was thrilled when I was perusing Amazon.com and found an 8-inch plushie of the zebra from the cartoon. She really has no need for a stuffed animal, but I knew she would be tickled by it. And she definitely was.
My brother is majoring in music education at Ohio University, where the marching band takes up pretty much his entire life. This past year, he switched his instrument focus from saxophone to drums and earned a coveted spot on the drumline. So part of my gift to him was a set of pencils that are shaped like drumsticks on the non-writing end, found on ThinkGeek.com. I also got him a t-shirt featuring a character from a rather obscure Japanese anime movie we owned on VHS and watched over and over as children.
My husband has always loved winter, and by extension, cozy sweaters, hoodies and fleeces. Over the past year or two he really developed a penchant for argyle print. (I, for one, embraced this, because he typically wears nothing but solid-colored black or navy blue polo shirts and khakis, pretty much every day.) We decided to go small on gifts for each other this year because we plan to buy some new furniture for our home, so for him I got a black-and-blue argyle sweater. I also got him a bar game called “Shut the Box,” which he tells me originated in 16th-century England and involves dice. He started playing it at the Pub in Beavercreek when he used to go there frequently. Now that we have a house with a bar in the basement, I thought he’d appreciate that I remembered this game, even if I only learned to play it after he unwrapped it this morning.
I didn’t come up with anything really unique for my dad for Christmas, but I don’t feel too bad because I really spoiled him on Father’s Day. One of the things my dad and I have always bonded over is music. He raised me on the classic rock and blues that I still enjoy to this day, and when my husband acquired a record player, my dad handed over boxes of his old vinyls for us to peruse. Through those, I learned that he’s always really liked the bizarre stylings of Frank Zappa. For Father’s Day, I got him a great Zappa t-shirt and a book about his life, along with a few other Zappa-themed things. He was blown away.
THAT is what I think is the best part of holiday gift-giving. It’s not about the size or the expense or how hard it was to find. My loved ones’ reactions to carefully-chosen gifts is what makes the mall traffic, long lines and shipping & handling all worth it.
My family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve, largely due to my mom having been born and raised in Switzerland and that being the Swiss tradition. And for farther back than I can remember, our traditional meal has been grilled Asian pork tenderloin (so named for the ingredients of the marinade, not for any ethnic connections) that is simply to die for.
This year, after dinner, I started recounting the myriad tiny memories I have from childhood, sharing those stories and images with my parents and brother to see how they compare to their own memories of the same events and places. Until I was almost 7 years old, we lived in Connecticut, and I sometimes surprise myself at how much I remember from those years - those are memories I really cherish, and I plan to start writing them down before I forget them. I really enjoyed telling those stories - although I felt bad for my poor husband, who had nothing to contribute and instead sat there suffering from his allergies to the dogs. He’s a trooper, but after a full hour of reminiscing, he started subtly pointing at his wrist and suggesting it was time to move on.
What went into your gift ideas and decisions this year? What traditions do you share with your family? Did you start any new ones?
And finally - Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
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