When It's the Thought That Stinks

Time for a Seasonal Pissing Contest

By Joan Opyr, 12-29-06

A War on Christmas? No. I'm declaring a War on Christmas Gifts. I call it Operation Crappy Freedom.

I don't celebrate Christmas. I haven't for years. I converted to Judaism more than a decade ago, but early childhood training will out. Every December, as I light the Chanukah candles, I still feel a terrible urge to go shopping. I buy something for each of my relatives; I wrap it up, pack it carefully in a box full of styrofoam peanuts, and I stand in line at the Post Office for hours. I spend a fortune mailing things to my family, things I hope (or suspect) they'll like, but really, I have no idea. I haven't lived at home since I was seventeen. What I'm sending them are things that I would like, things that I think they need. No -- I promised honesty here -- what I'm really sending them are hints. If you get a thermal henley from me in navy blue, that's probably because I want a thermal henley in navy blue. A really nice one from the Duluth Trading Company.

You might hate thermal henleys. You might hate navy blue. What you like are western-cut denim blouses with brightly-colored flowers embroidered down the right breast and "Rebel Chick" written in shiny red bead-work on the left. We each open our gifts and say, "Hmm. Well, I sure don't have one of those." Why not cut out the middleman? Why not do our own clothes shopping, send a nice card to our relatives, and give the money we would have wasted on our dreadful gifts to charity. For those relatives who can't or won't get the point, I suggest holiday cards featuring a picture of a camel, the eye of a needle, and George W. Bush.

But I digress. This is not an essay about problems and solutions. I promised you a pissing contest featuring the world's worst gifts. I'll begin, and you feel free to post your responses in the comments section. Okay? Okay.

My grandmother, who turns 85 next month, has long given puzzling gifts -- for example, the aforementioned embroidered denim shirt was given to me, a butch lesbian. I used to have a rule about these feminine clothing hints. I let them hang in my closet for 12 months with the tags still on them. Then, I'd donate them to Goodwill. Why did I wait 12 months? Because it seemed polite to let a year's mourning pass before I saddled a major charity with one of these monstrosities. My grandmother doesn't give hints anymore. There is no rhyme or reason whatsoever to her gift giving. A few years ago, she sent me plastic safety goggles, a calendar of art from the Foot and Mouth Artists Guild, and a pair of thumb cuffs. Trying to find meaning in that assortment is akin to reading James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. This year, however, my grandmother surpassed herself. She used to wrap presents, but she's given that up. I approve -- why waste paper? What concerns me is that she's also given up labeling. A Christmas box from my grandmother is now a catch-as-catch can, a confusing assortment of who knows what for God knows whom. My family comprises my partner and me, ages 42 and 40, and our kids, ages 12 and 7. Here's what was in Granny's holiday box:

Three DVDs -- four episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies, four episodes of The Lone Ranger, and four episodes of a show I've never heard of called Dusty's Trail. See if the plot of Dusty's Trail sounds familiar:

"From the creator and star of Gilligan's Island comes this absolutely hilarious show. Full of bumbling buffoonery, stammering stooges, and precarious pickles, this classic television show features Bob Denver (better known as Gilligan) as a clumsy trail hand whose wagon gets separated from the others on the way to California. Lost and confused, it's up to Dusty and Callahan, the wagon master (played by F-Troop's Forrest Tucker), to figure out how to get their passengers (which include a millionaire and his wife, a brilliant scientist, a beautiful saloon girl and a cute school teacher) back on the trail west."

Originality. That was the hallmark of Sherwood Schwartz, the man who also brought us The Brady Bunch. My partner and I assumed that the DVDs were for us, but we could have been wrong. It turns out the subscription to the horrifically morbid Angels on Earth Magazine was for our 12-year old daughter.

Angels on Earth Magazine is published by Guideposts, a fundamentalist Christian outfit founded sixty some years ago by Norman Vincent Peale. Bearing in mind that my partner is a Quaker, I am a Jew, and none of us is a fundamentalist anything, a Guideposts publication might seem an odd choice. I had a quick browse through the magazine. The issue my grandmother sent was cover-to-cover dead babies. The babies dropped dead for a variety of reasons -- because their parents are atheists, secular humanists, crackheads, or just not fundamentalist Christians -- but that's okay because they all met Jesus in heaven. Yay, Jesus! Get on with your bad self!

To be fair to Granny, there were some non-Christian coloring books, some stuffed toys, and quite a few plastic choking-hazards. Clearly kids' stuff. There were also three Christian romance novels from the Love Inspired series. Those were for my partner and me. My favorite? Heaven Sent Husband, by Gilbert Morris. For a time, I was at a loss as to why my grandmother might have sent us these novels. She's not a homophobic woman. On the contrary, she's been very open and accepting. And so I wondered what, if any, message there was here. Did she want to show us how the other 90 percent live? Or did she send them because I'm a novelist, and so that must mean that I like novels -- any novels. A book's a book, right? Except for the aforementioned Finnegan's Wake, which is really a form of torture.

I looked more closely at the box of horrors. A-ha! My grandmother had sent the Christian romance novels in their original packing. She'd joined the Love Inspired Book Club. Hurrah! This means I know what I'm getting for my birthday -- more books like Protected Hearts, by Bonnie K. Winn, and Journey to Forever, by Carol Steward. Who needs eHarmony.com and its weird founder, who looks like a cross between the late Mr. Rogers and Dr. Scholl? God will find you a husband. Jesus is too busy with the angel babies.

You know what's responsible for my grandmother's gift choices? Parade Magazine. Sure, it looks harmless enough, but that evil, brightly-printed insert appears in nearly every Sunday newspaper in the country. It arrives in the homes of innocent people like my generous if somewhat addled granny, and they are sucked in by the heart-warming cover stories -- the tales of one-armed trapeze artists who climb Mt. Everest one-handed. When they've finished wiping away that tear of amazement and empathy, they go on to read Ask Marilyn, the column by Marilyn vos Savant, the high-IQ Dear Abby who answers your burning questions about quantum physics. They read the Howard Huge cartoon and the celebrity kiss-ass interviews on the back page, and they don't notice that in amongst all this fascinating folderol are advertisements for everything from the vacuum cleaners to statues and plates from the Franklin Mint to subscription forms for Christian romance book clubs. By then, it's too late. They've filled out the postage-paid order forms, and they're stuck. What to do with all of that Parade Magazine crap?

Of course! Send it out as holiday gifts. My grandmother is a victim of Parade Magazine and so, by proxy, am I. Damn them, I say. Damn them all.

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