THE PRESENCE OF PRESENTS

There’s this humourous quote that I saw ‘Forget about the Past, you can’t change it. Forget about the Future, you can’t predict it. Forget about the Present, you didn’t get one.’

Well, there was a time when I loved holding the gift wrapped box, shaking it to guess its contents and then ripping the wrapping paper apart. Everything boils down  to the mystery and excitement of receiving a gift.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love receiving presents.

But.

It is grammatically wrong to let a conjunction stand by itself. Yet, ‘but’ is so appropriate here because it creates a pregnant pause for dramatic effect. It conveys a whole lot of reasons why the spirit towards receiving presents could be different altogether.

The culprit must be the cupboard that stands in the room.

Yes, a cupboard full of presents that we have no use for or can’t find a corner in the house to be placed. Most of us have this shelf, drawer or trunk where we keep the presents that we have received, to be recycled. Recycling seems a harsh word, so we say to ourselves we’ll give the presents away to someone else or to charity.

Birthday gifts - When the children were young, we used to organise birthday parties for them. Somehow half of the presents would be gorgeous teddy bears. Now, how many gorgeous teddy bears can a child bring to bed with him?

Wedding gifts - Among the many presents we had were 10 dinner sets and 6 electric irons. We only needed one dinner set and one iron at any one time, if you catch my drift. They have this service nowadays called the ‘Wedding and Gift Registry’ at some department stores to help your friends and family buy the perfect gift for you but I don’t think that will work for all the guests that you invite.

Christmas gifts - Suddenly the drawers are over taken by reindeer socks, snowmen candles, Christmas ornaments, toiletries, jewellery, cook books and more cook books. Now I won’t even go there.

Just the other day, I saw a sweet elderly lady buying a garish piece of jewellery which cost her an arm and a leg. The cashier asked if she was buying it for herself or for someone else. She said she was giving it to a friend. I hope her friend likes garish jewellery.

I find that cosmetics, perfume, clothes and toiletries are very personal choices. I use a certain range of skincare products, perfume and toiletries. It will be rather difficult to convince me to use any other. We tend to buy for others what we would like to buy for ourselves. But you can’t get  more wrong than that. For example, I love the smell of lavender but my beautician hates it, so if I get her a lavender scented gift it would most likely end up being recycled.

When an acquaintance asked me what she should get for her teenage grandson’s birthday, I said cash is best. He can buy something he likes with the money. But the doting granny recoiled in horror and said cash is too impersonal. The last I heard was she was going to knit him a jumper. I think I’ve heard enough jokes about young people receiving jumpers from senior relatives each year and what they do with them.

After so many years of giving and receiving presents, I’ve narrowed my choices down to cash, dining vouchers, departmental vouchers, holiday vouchers and the occasional handmade quilt. I find all these very practical and altogether delightful for myself and for any age group. Sensible things like disposables for a new born or a few bags of coal for a wintry night are all very welcome.

Meanwhile, I have to clear that cupboard of presents and hopefully it won’t be restocked any time soon.

This article was originally published in the New Straits Times, Malaysia on 26 June 2016

http://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/06/154711/presence-presents