All I want for Christmas

I'm expecting nothing for Christmas and nothing would be just fine. 

I do love to receive thoughtful gifts but I hate to receive gifts that make it clear that the giver doesn't know me at all.  I do get gifts like this from family members, mostly.

"Natasha, for Christmas I give you Dejection and Loneliness.  I hope it fits.  If it doesn't, you can't return it because I stole it."

"Thanks, Gift Giver.  I was running out of the Feeling Misunderstood and Unloved from last year's obligatory gift. I think this will be a suitable substitute."

Jude used to say I'm hard to buy for.  If total strangers can tweet me or write me and say, "This is so you!", then I'm not hard to buy for;  you are just maybe not good with patterns and trends and should never try a career in marketing or business.  Or you need a hearing aid.  Or you have bad taste.

(I guess that means I think I have good taste.)  (I do.)  (Have it, that is.)

Jude is better now at buying me gifts because he knows me better, has been paying closer attention.

I'd rather get nothing than something completely disheartening.  I'm not put out about getting nothing. 

For one thing, I buy what I want.  If I want it that badly and have to ask for it, I might as well just get it for myself.  Making a list and then getting what you want on your list is not real gift giving or receiving.

As well, words, not gifts, are my love language.

I do love to give gifts.  The best gift someone can give me is appreciation for the gifts I give them.  Not all my gifts are awesome, I'm sure.  I once sent some people some guitar ice cube makers.  But when I make you a day-by-day calendar, completely by hand (365 pieces of paper cut and written on by hand, bound by hand), titled 365 Reasons Why I Love You, you better say more than just, "Wow, thanks."  A more appropriate response would be to weep and cut off your right arm and bronze it for me.  (Unless you're left-handed, in which case your left arm will do fine.)

I don't ask for much.

It makes me happy to know that I made you happy.  That was the point, after all.  Perhaps some people make gifts to receive praise and gushing over their talents but if that was the case for me, I'd have got around to opening up an Etsy shop.  I realised last night that unless I'm making something for someone I love, I have no motivation to finish it.  

Now, for a jarring interjection that breaks up this already lurching writing.

Shallow things I want for Christmas:

• the Swiss army knife of the 21st century:  iPhone.  I'm too stupid to learn how to use anything else.  I still have never read my camera manual.
• tickets to see Prairie Home Companion live
• a stand-up freezer for my garage
• drywall on the ceiling of my garage, then paint on the walls, then some curtain across the storage part of the garage, so that our home gym in our garage is more welcoming
• a treadmill for the dog.  I'm so tired of having to feel guilty all the time at all the dog walking Jude does.  It's exhausting.
• recessed lights in my dining room because this light fixture that we have is way dimmer than I expected.  I even put it ON a dimmer, which is such a laugh.  A private laugh because I'm too embarrassed to tell any visitors. 
• this weathered leather sofa in a lighter brown.  Lulu has stained the sage out of our Ikea Ektorp number.  And wouldn't you know, Ikea stopped making sage-coloured slipcovers.  Grrr.
• a seagrass blind for my front door, and ones for my dining room windows and something for the basement windows.  Although privacy after two years of putting ourselves on display?  Photos are probably already circulating the web.
• book shelf unit for the basement so stuff can be put away instead of just spread about on the floor
• laser treatments
• Garrison Keillor's Good Poems, and Good Poems for Hard Times
• a new book by Michael Chabon, any will do
• this original, stunning work of art that combines my love of letterpress, with my love for black and white art, with my love for fonts and language, with my love for the Salt Lake City temple

That's all.  Nothing much.

All that said, I do get gifts that are not exactly my style and if I love you a lot, I will love it a lot too.  When I was 16, Jude bought me a fitted but matronly navy dress I did not like, but he guessed at the size and it fit perfectly.  He loved me and went shopping alone for a dress for me.  I wore it with pride for years until my breasts got too big.  (Note me pretending that's all that got too big.)

Isn't that what gifts are really about?  Tokens of love?  Buying something off a list-- is that a token of love or of met expectations? 

I'm not expecting anything this year.  I look forward to Christmas morning for when Jude opens my homemade somethings and does a little better than a bland "Wow, thanks." 

If you feel loved by me on Christmas, and you love that you do, then I'm sitting here grinning, saying, "Aw, shucks."  I feel triumphant, my heart is full, my Christmas is good.

(But seriously: iPhone.)

Daily Gratitudes

1. A bright, sunny snow day.
2. Had a great idea for my son:  Write a play for us to act out on Christmas morning, incorporating words I've given him, and have them mostly make sense.  I'll video it and show you, if all goes according to plan.
3. Flirting with Jude quoting The Godfather on Twitter.
4. Sleeping in with delicious dreams.
5. Knowing what I'm going to make for supper tonight and just otherwise feeling lazy and happy today.
6. Lulu putting a blanket over her head, wearing only underwear and lots of pen markings (she calls them "love marks"--??), and saying in a ghostly voice: "I am thirstyyyyy!"

P.S. I decided to opt out of the Best of 2009 Blog Challenge.  Almost decided to opt out of blogging altogether, just because I didn't feel like it anymore.  We'll see where the wind takes me.