All I want for Christmas...

I had just typed in the title of this thing when the phone rang and it was Daughter Two checking in. One question she asked was the standard “What do you want for Christmas?” I know this isn’t amazing as coincidences go, it being the official start of the Christmas shopping season but it did sort of confirm that this is the topic for the day.

I seldom have good gift suggestions for those inclined to ask. Which is not exactly a line stretching down the block and around the corner, so I don’t really need to think about it that much.

But if I DID think about it…

I’d like a potato peeler with a fat handle to replace the standard, skinny metal one we’ve had for as long as I can recall. Arthritis, mild as mine may be, is not helped by skinny handles.

A gift certificate to Half-Price Books or Goodwill is always a good idea. I read more than I can afford and since my odd combination of visual deficits means that I frequently need to break the binding of a book in order to comfortably read it, I can’t rely on library books to meet my reading needs.

Okay, so here’s the problem – I can’t think of anything else just now. And by ‘just now,’ I really mean that I’ve never been good at suggesting gifts for myself. This arises, I submit, not from any failure of imagination but rather from lack of need.

I just went through the exercise of sorting through all the various office supplies that have been clogging shelves, desk tops, counters and boxes in just about every nook and also cranny around Chez McDermott for as long as I can recall. The sheer volume of pens, pencils, markers, paper in an astounding variety of colors and sizes and weights, at least a dozen erasers, not including the kind that you stick on the end of a pencil – I’m talking Pink Pearls or larger, several staplers, at least a dozen rulers. The list goes on.

We’ve gone through all our daughters’ school years and my degree path and now Mary’s certification courses and apparently we never actually, you know, looked through what we had before heading out to the office supply store. And we also seem never to have thrown anything away.

I don’t want to give the impression that we’re hoarders, not in a general sense. But as to office supplies, I’ll take the hit.

My point is that I don’t really need anything. Okay, so I can always use more sweat socks. And sweat bands, since I need to keep ahead of Zoey’s consumption of them (It ain’t easy - the dog LOVES chewing sweat bands!).

There are kids all over the place that need stuff. Basic stuff or fun stuff. But much of it, very necessary stuff. If you read the request cards on one of those mall gift trees, the number of kids asking for winter coats will break your heart. It’s Christmas and they’re asking for winter coats. Damn.

Kids in the area around Tacloban would like (fill in anything, because these kids just lost everything). Kids in many of our own school districts would like books with the covers still attached or any sort of art supplies. Children in Africa, Asia, and Latin America would sell their souls for a daily dose of vitamin A, assuming they understood that it would save their night vision and even their lives.

Really, I didn’t start this post idea as a sermon but it seems to be going that way. Sorry about that.

It’s just that I really don’t need much, if anything. And lots of Dads in this world don’t know how they’re going to feed their children tomorrow.

You know what to do.