And now I have a question for you.
Nov. 30th, 2006 09:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
constanceOne of the nicest things about being a grownup is that you can have a slice of pumpkin cheesecake for dinner and there's no one to say you nay. I'm just saying.
:::
I went to lunch today with my mother, and we talked briefly about my awful aunt, who, among her many stellar characteristics, possesses the ability to pronounce the word interesting in such a way as to turn it into a synonym of appalling. She thinks our family is interesting. She thinks that any gift which does not correspond to her fluid and entirely subjective ideas of what gifts ought to be is interesting.
Or really, what we talked about was not my aunt so much as the fact that it's an unrewarding struggle, trying to find a gift for someone who will open it, peer into the box with an expression most people reserve for gifts of dog manure, and say, "Oh, how interesting!" in That Tone of Voice.
And yet we persist. Both of us like picking out things for people that we think they'll like -- though goodness knows we don't always succeed -- and neither of us wants to be the sort of person who keeps a kind of mental tally running (giving gifts as payment for kind thank-yous or interest, either real or well-feigned), and neither of us is assertive enough to just say Enough. And so we beat on, picking out gifts, or making them, with care, knowing all the while that they'll be dismissed.
I'm curious, because I'm sure that at least a few people around here have people similar to my aunt on their lists: how do you respond to such a person? By not buying gifts any more? By trying harder? By sneering a heartfelt fuck-you?
:::
I went to lunch today with my mother, and we talked briefly about my awful aunt, who, among her many stellar characteristics, possesses the ability to pronounce the word interesting in such a way as to turn it into a synonym of appalling. She thinks our family is interesting. She thinks that any gift which does not correspond to her fluid and entirely subjective ideas of what gifts ought to be is interesting.
Or really, what we talked about was not my aunt so much as the fact that it's an unrewarding struggle, trying to find a gift for someone who will open it, peer into the box with an expression most people reserve for gifts of dog manure, and say, "Oh, how interesting!" in That Tone of Voice.
And yet we persist. Both of us like picking out things for people that we think they'll like -- though goodness knows we don't always succeed -- and neither of us wants to be the sort of person who keeps a kind of mental tally running (giving gifts as payment for kind thank-yous or interest, either real or well-feigned), and neither of us is assertive enough to just say Enough. And so we beat on, picking out gifts, or making them, with care, knowing all the while that they'll be dismissed.
I'm curious, because I'm sure that at least a few people around here have people similar to my aunt on their lists: how do you respond to such a person? By not buying gifts any more? By trying harder? By sneering a heartfelt fuck-you?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-02 11:22 pm (UTC)See, I like the unique-and-specific thing as well. If I get someone a sweater, it's a sweater we've discussed, or share a joke over. I'd also much rather have a gift obviously tailored specifically to my tastes than one that someone put a lot of money and no thought into.
My favorite gift for this Christmas is the gift I'm making my mother: a little perpetual calendar with a picture frame, with a bunch of snapshots I stole from their house on their last vacation, all scanned and resized so that she can change them out whenever she likes, and a promise to scan and resize any more pictures that she likes, in perpetuity.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-03 03:52 am (UTC)You are so darned gracious.