String Cheese Article - XXXIII

Christmas: It’s the fraught that counts

Posted: Tuesday, December 21, 2010 1:10 am

Christmas is only a couple of days away and I’m woefully negligent in getting my Christmas shopping done.

Sure, I could blame it on some external cause and come up with an excuse like “I can’t stand holiday crowds” or “I don’t have enough ammo to go Christmas shopping.” Truthfully, I’ve been afraid to give the crummiest gift.

If there was a country on this planet full of people who give cheap and thoughtless gifts, I would be their leader. It’s not that I intend to give Christmas presents that nobody likes, it’s just that I seem to pick the one’s the people really don’t want.

For example, a female friend of mine had a very small child who suffered from colic and cried quite a lot. Not her, but the child. Anyway, I decided to give her a box full of clean, hypoallergenic rags for Christmas. She had no idea why I had given them to her and she couldn’t figure out what they were for. I told her if she got tired of the kid crying she could stuff one of those cloths in its mouth.

Whoops. It wasn’t until I had a colicky baby of my own that I realized how insensitive I was.

I have to admit though, the rag trick works.

I guess I could re-gift an item. That seems to be the trend these days. I once got a Chia Pet from a friend and the tag read, “Ken, you are a great guy.” As I look around my hovel, I don’t see anything that could be re-gifted without seeming totally obvious.

Let’s see. I have loads of squirrel meat that would make a nice stocking stuffer. Who doesn’t wake up on Christmas morning with a hankering for some squirrel stew? I have many rolls of “environmentally friendly” toilet paper. On second thought, I better keep those. I know! I have several bottles of Amoxicillin left over from the last time I had a really nasty sinus infection. That would be a nice gift considering how expensive prescription drugs have gotten.

Whoever said, “It’s better to give than to receive” obviously never received anything. That saying puts an incredible amount of responsibility on the giver. Logically, if it were truly better to receive than give, then the flu would be more popular.

Unfortunately, gifts are incredibly scrutinized by the receiver and are seen as benchmarks for how well you like a person or not. Can you imagine how much hate mail I got when I gave all of my law enforcement friends their own copy of “Brokeback Mountain?”

Whoever said, “It’s the thought that counts” never gave any copies of “Brokeback Mountain” to a bunch of cops. I’m still trying to pay off those tickets.

Probably, I’ll just have to lay low until this whole Christmas thing blows over. I’ll just tell my friends I was abducted by aliens and I’ll get them gifts on Columbus Day.

Besides, if any of them really want to unwrap something from me on Christmas morning I’ll get them a dozen tamales.

I hope that each and every one of you have a very Cheesy Christmas!