Tags
gift giving, gifts, holidays, home, humor, life, mean things to say, parents, yoga mat
My Dad’s birthday was this past weekend, he is really big on photos and I attempted a diy that promised to be fantastically amazing but I don’t know how to read directions and so it became a fantastic mess. Thankfully I planned ahead in the off chance that it epically failed and got his Christmas gift way ahead of time. Reluctantly I wrapped the Christmas gift (a device that converts VHS to DVD), and headed over to my parents house.
James had not gotten our Dad a gift and he wanted my assistance as I “Always get cool gifts.” So pumped up by that comment we set out to get James a gift for Dad. At Target James saw a CD and said “Oh the guy from House made a CD, cool I bet Dad will like this.” I thought it was strange but I didn’t say anything.
Back at the house my Dad opened his gifts; Mom got him a yoga mat. My Uncle got him nothing. He was quite excited by James’ gift and ran over to the CD player where he blasted the tunes I had never heard before (admittedly it was pretty good). Dad opened my gift, and his face was dead pan. He read what the device did, and proceeded to open it. “What do you want converted to DVD?” He said in an accusatory tone.
Nothing really.
“Newsies?” He answered his own question.
“I wouldn’t mind having Newsies on DVD, but I figured that you could put our old family videos on DVD too.” I immediately felt defensive.
He continued to pull at the box to get the device out; the instructions fell out of the box he picked them up spinning them round and round without actually reading a thing. “You know Sonya; your gifts take too much work.”
He was not joking. I said nothing.
“I haven’t even opened up the gift you gave me for Father’s Day, what was that, a universal remote?”
Then I wanted to cry and pout. I felt really guilty for feeling that way. I wanted to turn to James and say something like “Congratulations on not getting a shitty unwanted gift.” That made me feel even worse because it was in no way his fault.
Dad looked at Mom without missing a beat and asked “Have you ever used that Solar Powered charger Sonya got you?”
I had gotten her a charger for her phone for camping trips or what have you in case of an emergency.
“No, I have no need for it.”
I sat there in silence, no thank you was ever thrown my way.
At home Mike made a comment to the effect of “You guys are really open about your ill feelings toward gifts huh?” As if he hasn’t known my family for nearly five years.
I looked at him really sadly and said “I would never tell someone if I didn’t like their gift. I have never gotten a gift I didn’t like… it’s a gift, it’s something for nothing, even shit I knew I would never use or wear or play with again I liked.” Oh that is not entirely true, for my one year anniversary with Wolf he got me a tiger print fabric cut to the size of a Queen Size bed and informed me he would sew it into anything I wanted. Um can you sew that into a camera, or a hundred bucks, or movie tickets, or a diamond ring that doesn’t suck, or a new pet, or a better guy?
So with Christmas just around the corner and my gifts being far too much work to enjoy I am at a total loss as what to get. Maybe this year everyone will get socks.
-ducksoup- 