Saratoga News

Let's stamp out meaningless gifts

By Sue Fagalde Lick

I approach Christmas with the same enthusiasm I feel for a trip to the dentist. Those darned gifts loom like a root canal on an infected molar. It's not that I'm selfish. I love to give presents, but all too often at Christmas we are forced to give and receive gifts that cost too much and mean nothing.

We began our shopping last weekend, quickly spending more than we actually had in our checking account, crossing names off our list. A book for this one, bath soap for another, a sweater for another. Every time we tossed another item in the basket, we spent another $20, which is far less than the TV commercials that have been blasting since mid-November would have us spend.

The media create a demand. If we didn't expect anything, every gift would be special, but with commercials, print ads and store displays screaming, "Buy me!" we get into this "I want, I want" mode. Children are brainwashed with such convincing ads for dolls, toys and computer games that they start believing they will simply perish unless they get a Snoring Ernie or Beanie Baby for Christmas. Each child is urged to make a list of what he wants and recite it to Santa Claus at the mall, as well as to every adult who asks, "What do you want for Christmas?" But what is the value of a gift if you ask for it? It's like putting in your order and expecting it to be filled. That is not the spirit of Christmas.

Adults are just as bad as children. I know I'll live if I don't get that scanner for my computer or that fleece bathrobe I've been coveting, but the media frenzy has been fanning my hopes for a month now.

Most of the items stores display as gifts are nice but useless, the kinds of things you give to your grandmother because you don't know what to get: cologne, knickknacks to gather dust on a shelf, a sparkly pin she would never wear. In retrospect, Grandma loved plants and probably would have appreciated a $2 pot of pansies more than $20 worth of smell-well she'd never use.

That same Grandma would show up with Grandpa at our house a few days before Christmas with enough goodies for us kids to fill a U-Haul trailer. Hooray, we cheered. Too much, said my parents, who were giving us new pajamas, slippers and school clothes, along with the bike or the doll that we had to have or die.

The other grandparents had a different system. Grandpa Fagalde would write us each a $5 or $10 check. Grandma Rachel would send us each a treasure box of oddities. Mine might hold an autographed poetry book she found in a thrift shop, a necklace from her own jewelry box, a classical guitar tape she sent for months ago, an odd scrap of fabric I might want to make into a belt or scarf. She would include newspaper clippings with key points underlined. Everything would reek of cigars and dust just like their house used to.

I look around the house now and ponder: what gifts do I love? The silly zebra magnet that holds up my grocery list, Mom's handknit slippers that I wore until they got holes in the bottom, the photograph my aunt took of a street sign that said Susan Gale Court, the portrait my mother- and father-in-law had taken only a few months before he died. One of my greatest treasures is a card my step-granddaughter made of construction paper and aluminum foil.

The homemade gifts, the thoughtful gifts, the things where someone took the time to ponder what would make me smile, those are the real gifts.

Let's make a pact: from now on, we give nothing beyond our means, and we give nothing just for the sake of giving something. And we refuse to let anyone make us feel guilty about it.

If we can do that, I'll get the same glow at Christmas that I feel when the dentist pronounces me free of cavities and good for another six months. Happy, happy, happy!

Before moving to Oregon, Sue Fagalde Lick was the editor of the Saratoga News.

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