A Lesson of Gift Receiving

Here's the thing... I am personally scarred by past experiences with the holidays. I want to start with that being stated so that you know I am not fully healthy with the whole gift giving and receiving thing... you can blame my earliest girlfriends.

You see I was always of the opinion that if I ask someone what they want, I should probably get that for them, or at least get them a really good excuse for not getting it and something of fairly equal value. Sounds easy, right? It looks like this:  I ask you what you want + you give me an answer = you get what you want

The flip side is that if I'm asked what I want, then I should be able to rest in a fairly strong presumption of receiving what I stated to be my desire: You ask me what I want + I give you an answer = I get what I want

You see the brewing dissonance? My earliest girlfriends all got what they asked for, and I would get crap. For reals. I would say, "All I want is a cheap remote control car that I can run around the front yard until it breaks." And I'd get a sweater. No apologies. No toy. Just a sweater.

So as I grew into adulthood, especially fatherhood, I have carried an extreme burden of performance anxiety in the gift giving and receiving season. Will I have gotten them what they really want? Will they be happy with it? Will I suck soggy toast at being Dad this year?

For the most part, aside from a few minor setbacks, I have been an Xmas machine! I simply say to my boys, "Tell me what you want." And *poof* they have it on Xmas morning, or they have due notice before hand that they won't.

Sounds nice and manageable, huh? No unnecessary anxiety. Everyone knows the score. Nice and neat, no worries. But for the last Xmas season or two I've had a nagging question in the back of my mind, "Am I missing a crucial lesson, not on gift giving, but on gift receiving?"

I think I did indeed miss that one. The problem with my nice, predictable system is exactly that, it's too predictable, but most of life and it's gifts are not. There's a need for my boys to sometimes get what they didn't ask for, and to learn to deal with it, or celebrate it, whichever is most appropriate to the moment. That's a life skill that will come in handy in many situations from personal relationships to school and work.

Ingratitude is never pretty. They might miss the beauty of a gift not sought, but very much needed. And we all run the risk of missing the other person's vulnerability in giving us a gift, and therefore end up dealing some real hurt to them instead of affirming appreciation.

Be thankful for the least gift,
so shalt thou be meant to receive greater. ~ Thomas a Kempis

Receiving a gift well is a grace given back to the one bringing the first gift, it is a blessed reciprocity. To teach it, I need to first learn it and live it. Discovering that there's a lesson I want to teach my boys that I haven't taught them is the realization that I probably need to learn it first. I told ya I have some gift-health issues.

~Todd