Random Christmas Story

This story (even though it involved me) made me get very “awwww…” this Christmas (Though to be fair, pretty much everything has been doing that lately.) In any case, I share it with you here so you too can go “awwww…” if you so choose.

Now, where to begin?

Ah, at the beginning, with my mother. Now, my Mom loves to buy me things. Wait, let’s edit that. My Mom loves to buy things – full stop. For me, f0r others she knows, for others she doesn’t know – if fact, if there’s something you’re looking for, let me know and my Mom will find it for you.

I will not pretend I don’t benefit from that particular quirk of hers, because I do. But I am also quite cognizant of the fact that my Mom finds it well-nigh impossible to pass up anything which she considers to be a bargain, even if she knows no one who actually needs/wants/can use said thing. And since she doesn’t like to admit that she’s buying things for no reason she sometimes tries to fit a square gift into a round hole, as it were.

This led, some years ago, to her purchasing for me a set of “Christmas” dishes. Now – there are women who find it amusing, and perhaps necessary, to have several sets of dishes for various purposes and change those out through the year. Christmas dishes, spring dishes, company dishes, summer dishes, etc. I am not such a woman. ROI for my dragging boxes of dishes out of the basement and up the stairs, then unpacking, washing and stowing them in cabinets while I wash, pack and haul the current set downstairs – well it’s non-existent. Concept baffles me. My Mom is one of the dish-changing women. She gets a lot of pleasure from it, I’ve seen her work all day to change over the dishes and she really loves it. She also changes her flatware and glasses, FWIW.

So five or six years ago when I unwrapped the first of the Christmas dishes (They have a cartoon tree and a little doll on them. I think they also have a teddy bear – they’re about as un-Susan as a dish can be.) I was somewhat taken aback, then pasted on a bright smile and said “Great!” because I knew they were probably expensive and yet she’d found them somewhere inexpensively and really really really wanted someone around her to need them, so she could buy and give them. I Get That about her. So I told her they were awesome and IF ONLY I had room in the apartment I would SO take them home right this minute and install them in my cabinets. Unfortunately I did not have that kind of room. She suggested I store them at her house until one day when I had the space. I agreed to this most sensible course of action. Dishes were stowed and subsequently forgotten by me.

And then the accessories started coming. The peripheral dishes. Every year for the last five or six I’ve gotten mugs, salt and pepper shakers, relish dishes, candle holders, napkin holders… it’s like all year long she’s on the lookout for matching pieces and I get a slew of them each Christmas. Fine. Love ‘em, no space for ‘em, please store them for me? Problem solved.

And then I bought a house.

All of a sudden I had space and was being pressured to take the dishes, along with mass tonnage of other unwanted gifts to which I’d applied the same bait and switch acceptance technique. Curses! What to do now? She started to catch on.

Did I really love the dishes?
“Of course!”
Was I sure?
“Of course!”
Was I ever going to use the dishes?
“Ahhhh, well here’s the thing…”

So I explained that despite my immense love for the dishes it was completely unlikely that I would ever use them – given my dislike of hauling dishes around for no reason and the fact that I live alone and I really don’t entertain very much. (As senseless as the whole Christmas dishes thing is, it’s even more senseless if I am then only one to ever see them in action.)

And this was hard for me because I have a tendency to conflate my love for my Mom with my acceptance of the things she gives me. And she gives me a lot of things. And many, many of those things have no relation to who I actually am as a person and what I might find pleasurable or useful. It can be tiring to adjust myself to fit every new thing she comes up with to give me. (See: bedjacket post.) And my Mom has been to my house – she’s seen the way I live. If she was looking at me clearly she would see immediately that the very idea that I would like or use cartoon Christmas dishes is laughable. But she really wanted someone to want them, because they were a bargain. See?

But then – JOY! My cousin, the one who is irritatingly like my Mom (in all the ways I am not at all like my Mom, and I have to hear about how alike they are, constantly. Barf.) heard tell of the dishes and she WANTED them! My Mom was hesitant to bring it up to me, given my own great love for the dishes, but the cousin really wanted them, had a great curio in which to display them (srsly, a curio) and would I consider parting with them? Yes, yes I would. She wanted to know how much I wanted to charge the cousin for them as they were, after all, my dishes. I said that I thought “free” was a great price. Even though they were technically my dishes and probably worth a significant amount of money, I couldn’t use them, I felt weirdo taking any money off of my cousin and my parents certainly don’t need the money. So I told my Mom to give them to my cousin and not take a dime for them. To me it was enough to have them go to someone who wanted and would appreciate them, plus taking the whole mental mess off my mind. She was very happy to get them, I was happy to not have to bring them home, my Mom was happy that someone wanted them and was going to use them. Story done. Right? Not quite. Here’s where it gets all “awwww…”

I have been wanting, for some time now, a KitchenAid mixer. One of the rather pricey “stand” mixers. Not the kind of thing I would ever buy for myself. Not the kind of thing I would even ask for as a gift, though I did tell my Mom I would like one if she ran into one for the right price (because that’s the awesome part of how she works – she takes requests). Christmas morning — guess what I unwrap? Oh YEAH baby. KitchenAid stand mixer! Oh yes! I was The Happy.

That’s awesome enough, but then she tells me the whole story. See, the cousin-so-like-my-Mom enters contests like my Mom buys stuff.

Constantly and for no discernible reason.

She’s won all kinds of things, including trips to various places both national and international and all kinds of cash and other sundry goodness. This year she entered a contest for a KitchenAid mixer — even though she already had one of her own. And she won. She was asking my Mom if she knew anyone who wanted or needed such a thing, and as it just so happened my Mom did. My Mom wanted to know how much my cousin wanted for this rather expensive mixer. And my cousin, apparently having been told what I said about the dishes, said that she thought “free” was a great price.

Every family has their own fucked up synchronicity I suppose. This is ours and it kinda warmed my heart. But don’t tell anyone, lest I seem all human and stuff.