Re: What do you think of Christmas?

A Backward Glance at Christmas Past

By Elizabeth Farnham

'The average family spent £1,500 on Christmas presents last year,' stated one newspaper. Another reported that many stores were dealing with an unusual number of customers seeking to change gifts they had received either because they were the wrong size, the wrong colour or just not liked. Although I must admit I was flattered to receive a garment size 14 I was not sufficiently optimistic to believe I could ever achieve the pleasure of wearing it.

As a child of parents who were both the youngest members of large families, my sister and I had numerous relations to indulge us with gifts at Christmas. The less pleasant aspect of this was that immediately after the celebrations my mother insisted that we spent a day writing thank you letters - a custom which seems to be on the decline these days.

Our letters were written to an established formula starting with - 'thank you for the socks, gloves, jumper, box of paints etc, - it was just what I wanted.'

'But you always told me that it was a sin to tell a lie,' I once wailed to my mother, 'I didn't want gloves, I never wear them.'

'It isn't a lie,' my mother rationalised, 'it's just that you don't realise you want them.'

The gifts we received fell into two categories according to our parents - sensible gifts and frivolous gifts. The latter being the most acceptable to us.

My daughters, as children, had to receive identical gifts where possible if the most horrendous sisterly row was to be avoided which would destroy the Christmas spirit of goodwill for the entire family.

Now that both girls are adults this is no longer a problem since they don't live together. Selecting gifts for them however is seldom easy because they don't appear to share my opinion about what is attractive. My younger daughter informed me that since she is collecting a set of china which will shortly be out of production a local store is holding a small stock of items for her. Perhaps I would like to purchase something from the stock. Excellent I thought - one problem solved. When the shop assistant produced six soup plates for £100 each I wished I hadn't asked. 'I'll just take four for now,' I said faintly. 'I'll have to put it on my credit card.'

'I thought you were giving up using credit cards because you could no longer afford the interest,' my husband reminded me in a voice which the entire shop of customers must have heard.

'That was my new year resolution for next year,' I replied.

Mercy has been a friend for over 40 years and if a medal was awarded for the person giving the most unwanted presents she'd certainly earn it. Many years ago when I was going through a phase of obsession with the poetry of Rupert Brook, Mercy sent me the same book of his poems year after year. In desperation I mentioned how much I adored the music of Mozart. Unfortunately I was foolish enough to state that I particularly liked his Symphony in E Flat. It is possible to tire of even a great piece of music after a time.

One Christmas I received four wallets. Last year, aware of my desire to lose weight friends and relatives sent me biscuits instead of chocolates. I wasn't convinced that this was any improvement but I wrote my 'just what I wanted' letters as usual. The habit was too deeply rooted to neglect.

One of my friends saves her unwanted presents to send as presents next year. With my bad memory I know this could prove disastrous and I'd probably send a gift to the original sender.

This year, stressing the excessive cost of postage, I informed all likely participants of my goodwill that I'd be sending gift tokens. It saved me a great deal of time and hassle purchasing all my tokens in one shop. I was delighted that the idea was adopted and I in turn received gift and book tokens. Oh delight - I could at last obtain that expensive book I'd always wanted. My several book tokens would be well used.

'Sorry madam, we don't stock that book,' the shop assistant informed me.

'Never mind I know they have it in the bookshop up the road,' I replied.

'I'm afraid your tokens can only be used in this shop.'

My heart sank. 'I'd better get some videos instead,' I said.

'Your tokens are for books and not for videos'. The woman was obviously growing impatient with my stupidity. So much for my brilliant idea.

I've written all my thank you letters but since I forgot to retain the labels on the gifts I received I had to write 'thank you for the lovely gift etc' and trust it was not too obvious that I didn't know what the gift was.

Oh well, another 12 months of peace ahead before the next trauma of Christmas giving arrives. However I must check my birthday book and I must make a note that my teenage granddaughter has informed me she is a 'gothic' which in modern jargon apparently means a preference for everything black. I wonder if she'd like a witch on the top of the tree instead of a fairy next year.

I've just had another brilliant idea. I'll start buying one present each month until next Christmas and avoid all the problems of last minute shopping.

There is just one new idea which came to me prior to Christmas and that was to dispense with sending cards this time. The cost of cards plus the increased cost of postage makes the whole thing unacceptable. Cards inevitably end up perched on every available piece of furniture to fall down every time dusting takes place. After Christmas schools and clubs no longer want old Christmas cards. It's all to do with 'health and safety' I suspect. Instead of sending cards, sending donations to worthy charities seems much more sensible.