Christmas is coming, the goose is getting
fat.
Please to put a penny in the old man's hat.
— traditional Christmas round
When I was growing up in the fifties the "shopping days till Christmas"
countdown was probably important, to merchants and consumers alike.
Stores were open only two evenings a week and never on Sunday. Most
people didn't have credit cards or charge accounts and paid for
everything with cash, so Christmas Eve shopping was a necessity if you
were counting on that last payday before the holiday to fuel your
Christmas spending.
I don't shop much in actual stores for Christmas gifts. I'm a devotee
of catalogs and I order a lot online. I buy local crafts in Vermont in
August and museum or gallery items all year long whenever I visit one.
I buy Clinique Happy Heart stuff for Lynn whenever it's promoted and
stash it away under my bed. (I've taken to writing notes in my November
calendar pages to remind myself of what I have and where I put it, ever
since the time I sold a piece of furniture in July and found two CDs
intended for Ron the Christmas before tucked away in a drawer.)
I did go out today to a mall. Since Lynn was a baby we've given her a
different Lenox ornament every year. Early in October I ordered a
personalized piece for her at the Lenox outlet in Lancaster. Yesterday
I received a notice that they would not be able to produce it in time
for Christmas delivery. (You'd think two and a half months ahead for
what would surely be a popular item would be enough!)
The Lenox display at the Bon-Ton seemed picked over and looked anything
but festive. I walked past a motion-activated five-foot plastic Santa
that began to ho-ho-ho, scaring both me and the toddler who was
observing from his baby carrier while his mother looked at linens
marked down 40%. I left without buying anything.
I remembered that Ron said we didn't have any "from-tos," tags or
labels that you put on gifts to identify the recipient. Following my
Very
Frugal Mother's example, I save any wrapping paper that isn't
completely destroyed. The gift bags that are popular now seem to have
been invented for this, and I have quite a stash. But the attached
"from-to" is usually written on, so I have to
supply a new one. That's what we're out of.
I went to a Hallmark store in the mall. This was even worse than the
department store. Everything about it made me feel tired. I figured
that my Christmas spirit had peaked, that the things that make for my
own True Meaning had happened — seeing people I love at my party and at
others', being in touch, meditating on the abundance in my life and
getting ready to set my soul ajar to welcome the ecstatic experience of
a new year.
I found the from-tos and picked up a package. They were at the end of a
long aisle of Christmas items, near the back of the store. I rounded
the display case to walk to the cash register the other way and found
myself standing in front of what can only be described as a
"meager" supply of non-Christmas-themed birthday and other occasion
cards.
I thought of
the exasperated woman
I complained about a few days ago, the one who was angry because stores
in neighborhoods where there are few Jews do not stock Hanukkah items
for her and who was obviously not interested in getting to know our
community better by traveling ten miles to a place where they are more
readily available. Ha! I thought. She should try finding general
birthday items this time of year.
Today would be the eighty-sixth birthday of Ron's
Aunt Nanny,
his mother's sister. She died in 1998 a few weeks short of her
eightieth.
My
father, who died in 1985, would be eighty-eight on the Feast of
Stephen. Because of the distractions and the hoopla of Christmas, both
of them got short shrift on their birthdays, seldom a card and even
less often a gift.
I paid for the from-tos with a five dollar bill and some coins and got
three ones in change which I shoved into my pocket. I left the store
thinking about Christmases and birthdays past, the people I've seen
this week, the ones I'll see soon, the ones I'll never see again.
At the exit I encountered a Salvation Army bell-ringer. They've had a
bit of trouble this year, especially from
Target.
To tell you the truth, I never thought much about them, nor do I think
I ever contributed to one in all the Christmases I've been a shopper. I
looked hard at this bell-ringer. She was an older woman, dressed in the
usual Salvation Army garb, and she looked a little like Aunt Nanny.
I became more keenly aware than ever about the uncountable abundance in
my life. I took the three dollar bills out of my pocket and dropped
them
into the kettle. And I went home to have Christmas.
