Truesday: The Season Of Giving
*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors
Saviors and Santas and all that mess. It's upon us. Like a tax audit with a soundtrack and fancy tinsel.
Your friends and family will be requiring restitution for having bothered to know you for yet another tired-ass year. Some people you love, some people you owe, and some people who you’re pretty sure got you something sweet last year so you want to return the kindness.
That’s right, it’s time to get out into traffic, jump in some lines, beat up children for their Wii, and buy people some shit.
But before you jump on the bus and head to Target for some Dollar Bin solutions, feel free to consider the recipients for a minute or two. Don’t over-think it or anything, because that’s where all potential fun will be immediately sucked out of what is otherwise an arduous and fist-wringing experience.
For your friends and loved ones? Well, that’s easy. You can make it a “handshake Christmas” and attach a winking, hearty you know how the economy’s been if you think it’s necessary. Otherwise, just be cool with the fact that these people will love you no matter how cheap and lazy you are. In fact, the sooner they know this about you, the better. Look at it this way: if you chintz-out and give everyone the empty-handed shoulder-shrug for the holidays THIS year, then there’ll be no awkwardness for all the years to come when you’ll undoubtedly dole out the same ol’ vacant Santa-Shaft. Better to get these types of precedents out of the way as early as possible.
Cheap fucker.
But not all gifts are so easily shirked. Some gifts are compulsory, and rather than wave it off with a you know I’m broke, motherfucker, you’ll have to face up to the task. They’re not like karma, child support, or any other mythical activity. I’m talking about real, truly compulsory life activities. Undeniables like sleeping in your car because of a catastrophic fuck-up, or having to use an animal (living or pelt) in lieu of toilet paper.
You’re tethered to these experiences, and they WILL happen.
There are several versions of the compulsory gift. One would be a niece or nephew. They’re young, and unaware of how cruel and disinterested the world is. As an Aunt/Uncle, it really isn’t your place to show them “the ropes” by explaining that a back-pat is a perfectly reasonable present.
Grinchy douche balloon.
But children are easy to gift-for anyway, so there’s no real reason to punk-out. For my birthday, my grandmother used to give me as much money as the years I’d been alive. That was cool back when I was ten. I felt like you could buy a home in Nebraska for ten clams back then. But by the time I was nineteen and out of high school, inflation was seriously ruining the concept behind the gift. I had to add another dollar just to get a lap dance out of the deal.
But G-ma had set the precedent long ago, and she cleverly stuck to it. Kudos for the forethought. So just give that niece or nephew ten bucks and stop crying about how hard it is to buy kids presents. It’s not like they’re into frankincense or myrrh (myyyrrrhhhhrrrRAWR: that word needs to buy a real vowel). If they shirk at the ten bucks (give it in ones to make it seem more substantial), tell them to get a decent haircut and a goddamn job.
The other variety of compulsory gift is for the Random Office Drone. Usually one gets stuck with this opportunity for beauty through an ordinary office hat-drawing, perhaps the cheap-bastard-standard White Elephant Gift Exchange (meta-random), or the foul and dreaded Secret Santa. It matters not how you pulled this black bean. It’s yours. It’s a real responsibility. It’s going to be awesome. And it’s highly doubtful that you’ll ever get that promotion you were gunnin’ for anyway, so, fuck it.
Your gift to them will be your gift to yourself. The gift of malcontented self-entertainment.
Recommended Random Office Person gifts.
1) Classic: there’s always some joker who puts a pack of diapers under the drooping departmental tree, all wrapped up like a real gift, as if to say “you’re such a baby and you poo your pants and hah hahh ahaha ahha GODDAMN I’m clever!” Feel free to be the pamper-giver this year. But make sure to use them first. Thoroughly. Fill each crinkler with as much number 1, number 2, 3, 6, and whatever other numbers as you can muster. Feel free to enlist a pet to help out. THEN freezer-bag the result so it doesn’t foul up your car. After it’s been opened, laugh hysterically as you’re introduced to security.
2) Holiday Mixer: bag of Halloween candy. Make sure it is comprised chiefly of those black and orange wax-papered taffy shits, the same ones that have been in circulation for centuries. Tell them you bit one, put it back, and bet them five bucks they’ll never guess which one, but that you’ll know you won the bet when the herpes breaks out.
3) Go Green: used yogurt, sour cream, and butter containers. Write “Grapes Of Wrath Tupperware” on each. Request that the recipient burp them.
4) Humor: it’s really tough to find a catch-all for every level of humor out there. You’ll have to compromise and dumb it down a few notches to ensure universal acceptance. Write down three of the most horrifically racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic dick jokes you can conjure up, and then sign it “Your Mom’s Testicles On Your Dad’s Chin”. Use an envelope if you desire, or just origami it into the shape of a turgid phallus and cram it into their mouth whilst yelling “Christmas money shot! Christmas money shot!” Jokes! Everyone likes jokes! Find the nearest emergency exit and never stop running.
5) Justice: everyone hates someone else in the office. Call it politics, call it melodramatic what-the-fuck, call it a puppet show. Cater to this and write the words “It’s ON” upon an empty box. Wrap it, and at the company function, hand it to a person (any one of them will do) who your actual recipient “secretly” loathes. When the target unwraps it, looks up at you quizzically and says “but I already got a gift from Todd in Accounts Payable, and this shit’s empty you dick,” you PUNCH THEM SQUARE IN THE TEETH. Then you turn to the actual recipient and bid them a merry whatever. Call your lawyer immediately.
So, that’s a handful of plans. Most importantly, don’t re-gift. I know it’s a good fall-back, and a great way to evacuate all the useless shit you got LAST year from YOUR Secret Santa, but it’s a comedic corner you don’t want to cut. Besides, all shitty re-gifts should go right back to who pawned them off on you the year prior. Just to see if they even remember giving you that shit.
Boomerang gifting.
