The Season of Giving Takes Lots of Patience

I can’t believe this. Everyone on my street had their Christmas lights on their house by last week. I think they are the same people who smugly announce each year that they finished their Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving. I hate them all. Most years I am one of them.

But here it is three weeks before the big day, and I have yet to buy a single present. All I’ve managed to do is spin a couple of Bing Crosby records on my turntable, much to the whining of friends.

The stress of rounding up those perfect gifts for 20 people before Christmas Eve has always been as much a holiday tradition for me and my family as singing “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.”

Even as a child, I remember my parents trying to knock down the job by asking us to make wish lists, on which we would make specific requests for presents, from the Barbie Doll dress of our dreams (gold lame cocktail number, please) to the perfect pair of jeans (no Sears Buckskins, thank you).

But by adulthood the list thing had gotten out of control. I knew this the year I got my brother’s list: a meticulous inventory of yard and home-improvement tools, all reasonably priced at discount stores. For my shopping convenience, he had listed each gadget with item and page numbers for various catalogues. I jokingly offered to write him a check.

I don’t know why it surprised me when, years later, he bought a bunch of clothes at the Nordstrom half-yearly sale, then had his kids pick out his birthday gifts from the selection. (I think he must have been scarred from 15 years earlier, when our late grandmother gave him a series of, well, imaginative presents, including one lime-green bath towel. One, not even a set!)

We can tease each other about this stuff, and he argues that he’d buy the gear for himself anyway so it’s financially practical. But who wants practical? You learn this the first year you ask for a vacuum--and get one. Or your father buys you, a starving college student, what you need: two steel-belted radials.

Don’t get me wrong. I love giving gifts. I love the mental part, figuring out months in advance who will get what. It’s the physical collection part that drives me crazy.

Because my family and friends number in the double digits, I began trying to simplify my Christmas shopping a few years ago and restore some joy to it. First I refused to accept any more lists. Then I decided to add that personal touch by making a few presents.

Bad idea. I burned two pans concocting apple butter, and the tie I sewed for my brother took two years to finish. It looked like a failed science project.

Last year I did most of my gift shopping via mail-order catalogue. Great idea. No running out of gas while cruising for a parking space. No waiting in line for gift boxes that invariably are the wrong size. No urge to snarl something less than “seasons greetings!” at the turtle people who don’t understand the concept of Type A shopping. No compulsive purchases like battery-operated Christmas-light earrings.

One pal also suggested we donate to one of our favorite causes on behalf of each other, and I liked that idea. We have begun drawing names in my family to reduce the stress and financial burden, especially for those of college age.

Nevertheless, my Dad, the family patriarch, has withdrawn from shopping altogether this year. Instead he will cut us some checks.

There has to be a better way. I asked a few friends how they managed.

One of them has the system I liked best, sort of a mall pub crawl: you buy a present, reward yourself with a cocktail, buy a present, etc. This worked well until I left all my packages at the bar one night. Hey, I have a lot of relatives.