“What do you want for your birthday?” Karina asked when I picked her up at O’Hare recently. Karina is my wife. Her given name is Karen but I haven’t called her that in 20 years. Karina is more exotic.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, moving around an Avis shuttle that blocked half a lane.
“Well, what do you want to do?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“Do you want to go out for dinner?” Karina said, exasperation creeping in.
“No.”
“What can I make for you then?”
“Nothing!” I said, eyes darting at the rear view mirror. “Nothing. Okay?”
She let out a sigh that said “What a jerk.”
“Okay," I said. "Make enchiladas. Whatever. I’m trying to drive.”
Karina then turned on the radio loudly, and she let me drive.
Although we are both half-Polish and thus agree on practically everything, Karina and I are Poles apart on what constitutes best practices for birthday celebrations. There’s no disagreement on how to celebrate the kids’ birthdays, of course--gifts, cake, candles, The Song, and immunity from being grounded are universal traditions dating back to the earliest laser tag parties in
In Karina’s family, adult birthdays are Mardi Gras events that can span several days: gifts, cake, and The Song with the nuclear family; a repeat engagement with the extended family; and maybe dinner at the kind of restaurant where after the meal a posse of servers clap, chant, and snake dance around booths bearing a complimentary dessert with a sparkle candle.
In my family, birthdays pass without hoopla. It’s a good year when we remember to email one another, and a great year when we get the date right. The acknowledgement is always welcome, while the greetings go something like this: “Happy birthday, brother. Hope you have a great day. Did you get a job yet?”
Similarly, for many years the gift-giving practices of our respective families—particularly at Christmas—bore no resemblance to one another. Ironically, in this case it was my family that hemorrhaged excess.
In Karina’s family, everyone asks each other what they want for Christmas. They then go forth to stores or catalogues and buy the requested gifts. On Christmas Day the gifts are unwrapped and the recipient exclaims: “Oh my God, it’s beautiful! Thank you so much!!” “You’re very welcome,” the giver responds. “I knew you’d like it.”
In my family, on the other hand, exchanging gifts at Christmas involved surprise and intrigue. The giver might spend days or even weeks independently analyzing a person’s interests and needs before springing for a gift.
My brother Pat was the undisputed King of Family Christmas Shopping. Pat took extraordinary pride in finding the perfect, most delightful gifts for each family member. Most years he began to research well before Thanksgiving; he’d visit dozens of stores by foot, bike, and bus—he didn’t drive—finally compiling a short list of candidates over which he’d agonize for days. His final selections were always clever, unexpected, and fanciful. So fanciful in fact that upon opening Pat’s gifts at least one family member would invariably ask: “What is it?” Pat would then explain at length just why the gift was so delightful.
I ranked second only to Pat in my gift-giving efforts. I didn’t spend quite as much time shopping as he did, but I prized myself on creativity and an exquisite finishing touch. For each gift I created a riddle and taped it to the wrapping paper. People read the riddle and tried to guess their gift. It was great fun, especially when they guessed wrong.
One year, trying to out-Pat Pat I bought him a rock for Christmas. Not a glitzy souvenir-shop geode or gemstone--which I knew his nonconformist streak would find mundane--but a dull brown sedimentary stone about the size of a fist. It had numerous bicolored pockmarks and an interesting shape but was otherwise mundane, which meant Pat might like it.
I wrapped the rock in a small box stuffed with paper to make it less identifiable. Then I composed the obligatory riddle and taped it on. I don’t remember the riddle, but something like this would have been typical: “This gift is hard to guess, it came from Sly Stallone, if it hits you in the jaw, you’ll be bleeding to the bone.”
Pat pursed his lips and ran a hand through his hair. He raised an index finger in the “wait” sign, closed his eyes, and swayed back and forth, summoning his muse of logic. Finally, he opened his eyes and with a maniacal grin thrust his finger high in the air. “A ROCK!” he said triumphantly, to my dismay. But I too could claim victory: He liked the damn thing.
My family’s Christmas gift-giving tradition has, fortunately, evolved. Children came along and nobody had the energy or time for suspense. Now we are assigned one person and one person only to buy a present for. Creativity has languished; gift cards to Target are not uncommon. Nevertheless, my brother Pat refuses to observe the new rules and continues to buy unusual gifts for us all. He doesn’t have kids though, so he can be forgiven.
But back to where we started: birthday celebrations. I hate to be curmudgeonly about this. It’s bad enough to turn a year older without also turning into Andy Rooney. But unless it’s a big round-number age, adult birthday celebrations annoy me. On my birthdays I don’t want hoopla and I don’t want several encores of The Song. (Raise your candles, people...one more time!) Acknowledgment, Karina, the kids, and maybe a small cake work fine, and enchiladas would be delightful.
No comments:
Post a Comment