A friend of mine tells a pretty humble tale of holiday shopping during his 19th year. At the time, he was living with his parents out in the southern stretches of suburbia and was painfully aware of the fact that while his mom was still laundering his socks and underwear, he was going nowhere fast. These things have a way of catching up with you around the holidays, and so it was that on Christmas Eve, in a haze of winter depression and final-hour procrastination, my friend found himself bemoaning his fate while slamming cans of illegally purchased beer in the parking lot of the Southcenter Mall. Moments before the entire mall shut down for the night, my friend wised up to the ticking clock and ran inside to get his hands on whatever he could. Hickory Farms was the only shop that hadn’t closed or padlocked its gate, so he immediately warmed up to the idea of giving everyone on his list a stick of seasoned meat.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Back inside the car and loaded up with 10 sticks of summer sausage, my friend realized that he had screwed up royally this time. You can pass a log of beef off on your boss—or maybe, in a pinch, your dad—but your grandma? And your sister and your best friends and your girlfriend and your mom and your aunt with the already-high blood pressure? Even in his desperate, half-drunk state, he knew how bad it would look, so he resigned himself to coming clean; this would be the year he’d tell his family and friends that he just wasn’t the giving type.
Honesty is always a great gift, but how about when honesty reveals that there will be no gifts? Well, that can be a pretty good present, as well. Come Christmas morning, my friend found that his family was just fine with his decision to stop giving—so fine, in fact, that most of them responded by taking him off their lists. Tit for tat. Although he hadn’t bargained for the reversal of misfortune, the air was, at least, very clear. He was free from shopping and holiday stress, and he was free from unwrapping packages of brightly colored turtlenecks he didn’t want and didn’t need. After making this all-encompassing declaration, my friend enjoyed a decade and a half of stress-free (and gift-free) holidays. When he got married a few years back, however, the slate was wiped clean. But that has worked in his favor as well; his wife does the holiday shopping now. He says she’s just “better at it,” and considering his track record, I’m sure she is.
I suppose you’re wondering what became of all those unused sausages? My friend brought them down to his band’s rehearsal space, where he and his friends gnawed on them between songs for months and months in what was to become the year that cured them all of the craving for cured meat.
