kethrai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tis the Season. I’m slowly coming to realize that the reason I don’t much like the Christmas season anymore is because of my insecurities. The older I get, the bigger they get. The first major category of Christmas Insecurity surrounds gift-giving. I love giving gifts—truly I do. But back in the days Pre-In-Laws (I like to think of it as B.H.—Before Hell) my family was always very very tolerant gift-givers and gift-receivers. Since my mom practiced frugality on a scale that made Amy Dacyzyn look like a freewheeling spendthrift when we were small, they certainly viscerally understood the whole “no bucks increase creativity in gift-giving” dynamic. And it DID increase the creativity—I remember the year my sister wanted a polar-fleece jacket. I certainly had no money to buy one, so I went to the local fabric outlet and managed to fish enough scraps out of the dollar-a-pound bin to make her a very bright and cheerful jacket—the sleeves were different colors from the body and the collar, and it was very cute and what she wanted. Or at least I assume so, because years later she was still wearing the thing. I made handmade journals for my mother and got shirts for my dad, and it was all good. Even my husband has been pretty enthusiastic about his gifts from me, whether they involved Goodwill sweaters or discount swords. Or socks. He has a thing for socks. But I digress. Nothing so pleasant surrounds the gift-giving to the inlaws. They check for price tags, and when they can’t find them, they either ask outright how much it cost, or where I got it so they can go check the price themselves at some later date. Even when I give them some of my handmade jewelry, they’ve started to ask what I would charge for a piece like that. In recent years my mother in law has started asking the prices of the beads and components I use, I’m sure so that she can price out anything else I might give her. It makes me feel self-conscious and poor in a way that, no matter how broke I am or have been, has never occurred to me before. Lack of money was never a barrier to having more or less what you wanted, the way I was raised—poor equated lack of imagination more than anything else. There is always a way to get STUFF, if you need it, you know? It just may take a little longer to find the perfect red sweater in your size at the Salvation Army than if you went out to the mall. Even things like functioning cars can be got around if you have enough imagination, or determination. If you wanted to run down the list of Desirable Pop-Culture Yuppie Artifacts right now, I either have it or can get it. Money is truly a fiction in some ways to me—with a mere minimum amount, I can live like a rock star if I so desire. Thus, it absolutely flumguzzles me to deal with people to whom the price tag is more important than the object. And suddenly makes me feel very young. And poor. And somehow inadequate. Another part of the self-consciousness is the gift-getting. Which also—don’t get me wrong—I adore GETTING gifts, but with the advent of the inlaws, and the fact that my birthday is one of the December ones, has started to feel a bit oppressive. Gifts from the inlaws are, as usual, a whole separate issue from the whole birthday-gifts thing. Gifts from the inlaws tend to fall into two categories—Extremely Expensive Gifts That Are Intended To Point Out How Intensely Unworthy I Am, and How Much I Should Kiss Up, (the parents-in-law) –usually with the pricetags left on, and commentary about how they thought about getting me another whosit, but this whosit was so much MORE EXPENSIVE and BETTER....Or the other category, being the Insulting Piece of Crap I Bought From A Street Vendor for Fifty Cents But You Should Be Grateful For Because It Came All The Way From NYC (sister in law). For the record, my best friend brings me coffee and seaglass from Costa Rica, not only wonderful things in and of themselves, bitch, but actually calculated to my interests, unlike your Insulting Pieces O’ Crap. You’ll have to go a few thousand miles and spend more than one watt of brainpower—-although, oddly enough, not much more in the way of money-- to impress me. In fact, while you’re going a few thousand miles ANYWAY, why not just stroll off the end of that conveniently-placed pier on your way to Antarctica? The other part of the gift-insecurity surrounds my birthday. My family is really good about it—they do the whole birthday/Christmas separation quite nicely. And manage to make me feel important on both days—as an individual, on my birthday, and as part of the House of Kethrai, on Christmas. A fair number of other folks not of my immediate family seem to seize these occasions as an opportunity to diminish me. There are the “Oh, well, where it’s so close, I just got you this ONE present for BOTH” type people--where the ONE present is even less well thought out or carefully chosen and/or cheaper in both time and quality (money not being an issue, really—some of the best presents I ever got were chosen carefully and with great love off the ten-cent White Elephant table at the library yard sale the summer before...) than they would have chosen if they had chosen two separate presents. Then there are the “See? Birthday AND Christmas gifts”, which can be wonderful pieces of "cute" like one glove on the birthday, the other on Christmas. Then there are the “I didn’t have any money left over from Christmas shopping /car repair/life so I couldn’t afford anything for your birthday so I BLEW YOU OFF COMPLETELY, without even bothering with a card or a five minute phone call to say “hey, kiddo, happy birthday, I’m sorry I’m too broke to send you an e-card”-type people. The last category, I am unhappy to say, is the one that the Darling Husband fell into this year. Honey? I know you’re reading this. Blowing off my birthday without even a card made with your own pinkies and some leftover broken crayolas really SUCKED. I know we were broke that week, but I REALLY don’t like that I had to ASK you to get me a birthday present of some kind, it REALLY doesn’t make up for it, I’m pretty profoundly unhappy about it, and if you try that again next year you’re going to wake up sans salient body parts. Don’t even IMAGINE I’m kidding about this. I realistically know that at my age, you can’t really expect to be the Birthday Belle of the Ball, especially when you’re saddled with Ye Olde December Birthday, but that doesn’t stop some small part of me from hoping. And because I’m something of a realistic person, not expecting much. And therefore nearly bursting into tears over the thirty-forty odd folks from all over the globe who knew, and remembered, and sent me e-cards full of howling cats and medieval gowns and hopes for beads and wire and new tools in my thirty-fourth year on this planet. (I think that’s right…I turned 33, so I’m going into my 34th year…? I never did quite understand how that worked.) Especially when my husband blew it off. (Honey? Maybe you’d better print this one out. Bold the bits about your body parts, mm? Might motivate you, next year, to do something about that rectal-cranial inversion you got going on about this topic. Maybe your birthday doesn’t mean much to you—mine DOES to me. If you think I’m not serious? Just remember. You’ve got to sleep sometime.) There are other sources of anxiety and stress at this time of year. Since our state ties the car registration and inspection to your birthdate, I have to worry about those this month. There is the company Christmas party, which usually scares the hell out of me. I escaped that this year (our company cancelled it) but I’m slightly stressed over my friend A’s Yule Party—for once, I actually care what I’m going to look like at one of these things, because these are all the renfaire folks we met over the summer, including one of the wenches who confessed her undying to my husband in front of me like I didn’t even exist—and since these folks have previously seen me fetchingly attired in mud, sweat, sweat and dust, mud, rain, and similar fashion accessories at various shows, I want to have the Hot and Slinky Christmas Party dress that will look fab and not just outline my cellulite in loving detail. Which the shopping for is a hateful exercise all in itself. And while we're at it, one last thing that's standing on my last nerve--Christmas decorations. Specifically the dude who decided to put those lighted-up reindeer on posts in his yard. The ones that look like Santa didn't aim high enough when clearing the stockade fence? Him. Buddy. Please. It looks like you're having Vlad the Impaler's Christmas Party on your fucking front lawn, and it's freaking me right the hell out. Quit it. 5:32 p.m. - 2002-12-19 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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