by Claire Fordham
I was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness until I was nine years old, which meant there were no Christmas or birthday presents for me until then. It didn’t take an expensive therapy session to work out that’s probably why I love Christmas so much now.
The first Christmas gifts I received from my parents were a chemistry set and a Monkees annual. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. For me, Christmas has always been about the presents, rather than celebrating the birth of Jesus. Sorry about that. Plus the decorations. The festive food. Family and friends. And singing carols. Whichever your religion (if you follow one), you can’t argue against Christian religious songs being the absolute best.
Back to the presents. I prefer giving gifts to receiving them. Even if it’s not an expensive gift, I always wrap them in nice paper and with ribbons. Sometimes a cinnamon stick and fake festive flower or ornament under the ribbon. Anything that screams Christmas.
I like to think I am a good gift giver. I recall buying my sister her first iPhone when I couldn’t afford it. That raised a happy tear, always the goal in gift giving. A few years ago after my husband Colin and I agreed to stop buying each other holiday gifts, I bought him a memorable present – using money from our joint account that he had earned. Holding the gift in his hands he said almost angrily, “We agreed not to get each other anything. I haven’t got you anything. This is terrible. How could you?”
I said, “It’s only a book.”
A MacBook Pro! He’d been talking about getting himself a new computer for at least a year. Incredibly, that wasn’t Colin’s favorite gift that year. Colin has never been a fan of Christmas. But he did share with me once the joy he felt when he would open the Beano annual he’d receive every year as a boy. My sister, Julia, asked me what to get Colin that year and I told her the Beano annual story from Colin’s childhood. They still publish the Beano. Colin was so happy that Christmas.
The key to being a good gift giver is to remember the things your loved ones mention in passing that they love or would like to experience. The last gift I bought Colin was a helicopter flying lesson. That was a big hit.
I don’t always get gift giving right. A group of longtime girlfriends have an annual Holiday lunch and we each buy one gift for $30 and draw lots as to who will get which one.
I found a pair of slippers in Barnes & Noble (I know! Who knew?) that I thought would be a perfect gift for all the ladies, but my sister said they wouldn’t be a good fit for our friends and I should buy something else (see photo of the aforementioned slippers for proof I am right).
We actually argued about it. I said she was dead wrong. There was a strong element of irony in my choice, sure. But they were festive and fun, I said. Even if the lucky recipient only wore them on Christmas Day, they’d be the hit of their Christmas morning in their household. Julia was adamant. They were pretty horrible, she insisted. So I caved and bought a red ceramic dish with a lid for baked brie and anything else you want to bake that you can squeeze in there.
Out of interest, and to prove my point, I sent a photo of the slippers to the ladies in question and asked them to tell me, in all honesty, if anyone would have liked to have received the slippers in our Secret Santa. Not one even pretended to like them. I kept the sensational slippers for myself and I LOVE them. I am wearing them as I write this article.
It’s hard to know for sure if loved ones truly like the gifts you give them. People can gush and gasp with gratitude over a gift they don’t like and the giver would never know. I would advise against ever telling someone that you don’t like a gift they keep on giving, as it can cause irreparable resentments and rifts.
When my first husband and I were divvying up our possessions as we dismantled our marriage, I found nine bottles of Anglia British sherry that my uncle George gave us every Christmas. Trust me when I tell you that Anglia British sherry is truly disgusting. What do you expect from a bottle of booze that cost about 50 cents? It was an awfully long time ago, but still.
I decided to tell Uncle George, sweetly and kindly, to save his money and not bother buying me anymore Anglia British sherry because I didn’t like it. At all. I didn’t say it, but I thought at the time that Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry was a much more acceptable option. Well, Uncle George was deeply hurt and never bought me another gift ever again.
If you do receive a gift you don’t like, it’s okay to re-gift, but you must be absolutely sure that you don’t give it to the person who gifted it to you in the first place. The polite thing to do if you are on the receiving end of a gift you already gave is to say nothing and graciously accept it while not overdoing the gratitude. Receiving a re-gift doesn’t bother me at all, but I know of friendships that have never recovered from it.
Colin and I are back to not buying each other gifts this year. Happy to oblige. It’s stressful trying to think of perfect gifts for loved ones.
I won’t be caught out again this year being given a present from someone for whom I don’t have a gift. There will be plenty of spare gifts under our tree, beautifully wrapped, for those annoying people who turn up with an unexpected gift. I recommend tins of peppermint bark, bottles of wine, good olive oil, chocolates, boxes of trivia questions and charades as excellent emergency gifts. What would Christmas be without charades?
The only thing worse than receiving a gift for which you are unprepared and have nothing to give in return is when someone gives you something fabulous and you’ve only got them a token gift. Nightmare. At least if you haven’t got someone a gift at all you can blame Amazon for not delivering on time.
Maybe I’m getting lazy in my old age, but I’ve started giving my children and grandchildren money for Christmas. This seems like a good place to advise against ever giving anyone a gift card that can only be used in one store. Nobody likes receiving them. Cash. Give real money, people. So they can spend it where they want.
My son and grandchildren live in Fiji, my daughter in England. Some years I spent more on postage than I did on the gifts. Now my son does the Christmas shopping over there. They still put up the stockings and decorations that I’ve sent throughout the years. I watch them open their gifts over FaceTime wishing we were together. We’ve all been together before (twice already this year as it happens), but never for the big one: Christmas. I realize Thanksgiving is more of a whoop for Americans, but for Brits it’s Christmas every time.
I can barely wait for December 2026 as my family will be flying to Los Angeles for the holiday and we will all be together. I shall pull out all the stops, of course. I want my grandchildren to have a lasting memory of the joy of a family Christmas with me. Hopefully, I won’t have a stroke with the stress, exhaustion and expense of it.
