An unspoken boycott on gift giving

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Having interviewed a style editor about gift giving, I got to thinking about my own holiday wish list. What do I really want? God, just thinking about it reminds me of post-college conversations with my parents, lame sessions with guidance counselors and the upraised eyebrows of assorted therapists I have seen in my lifetime.

This year, my husband and I have eschewed a present swap without really discussing it much at all. We’re getting our place professionally painted next week, and so our walls are getting wrapped -- in a way. Plus, we buy each other little gifts -- like an old Cat Stevens album from Amoeba or a pulp fiction detective novel -- all the time. I know that he bought me a book at Taschen the other day because he hip-checked me out of the shop in Beverly Hills.

I, on the other hand, eyed some monogrammed cuff links for him, but didn’t follow through. I also contemplated a vintage camera, a membership to a comic book of the month club (I don’t even know if one exists, but it should) and a cookbook for him. He recently made baked chicken with great success and I need to act on the Iron Chef-high before he reverts back to saying, ‘What’s wrong with hot tuna and noodles?’

Not exchanging gifts is actually a great present in itself. In my past, a gift from a man I was dating -- or engaged to -- carried too much gravitas. If a man gave me slippers, I found them to be utterly unromantic and therefore, deemed our relationship ‘lustless.’ If a man bought me jewelry, it just didn’t sparkle enough (or, I sheepishly admit, cost enough). Unwrapping a present, for me, was like reaching inside his chest to weigh his heart. Invariably, it was always a few ounces short.

This year, my husband and I will probably take a walk at some point on Christmas and cook dinner early and then drink some great wine and play Guitar Hero in our underwear. The tree -- already drying up and jettisoning needles everywhere -- will stand without a bounty of wrapped loot beneath it. My husband’s heart will remain unscathed.

Having said that, I do have a wish list. It’s fun to think about what you want in the abstract, without the pressure of expectation. For years, I have coveted the work of local artist Kim McCarty, and her watercolor series of boys and girls has always awed me. In their faces, seemingly both reticent and eager to please, I see myself wanting and not wanting to be bothered. I think I apply that same dichotomy of desire to gifts. Not this year, though.

Credit: Kim McCarty paintings, kimmccarty.net