When you work from home and wearing anything besides sweatpants is the exception rather than the norm, Christmas tends to sneak up on you. In the office-job days, I was surrounded by piles of Christmas chocolate and cookies, not to mention overwhelmed by party invitations as awesome as the Hyatt hotel's massive bash and as bizarre as Southcentre mall's.
Speaking of malls, I am pleased to report I haven't been in one this holiday season. Actually, I haven't been in one since I left for Paris.
My decision to avoid malls like the plague is partly due to the anti-stuff rant I went on at the beginning of the month, which was a lot about how blind consumerism is wrecking the world and a little about how my artist-year budget didn't really include Christmas shopping. I only had one mall-based item in my plan, a Lululemon running toque for Boyfriend because he keeps stealing mine and has an extraordinarily sweaty head. But I bailed on that idea altogether when I saw the traffic backed up three kilometres past the parking lot.
So I got creative. And now that I'm officially finished my gifting, I can say that I did rather well on the non-consumer front. The only non-recyclable items I purchased were a couple of gift cards and the only other tangible products were two books and a couple of mason jars – all of which can be re-used. This year's gifts were all from the heart, mostly homemade and offer a good mix of creativity, humour and practicality.
All of my gifts could also fit into a single shoe box if space was an issue. And they are also fairly aerodynamic if the recipients needed to reduce wind resistance for any reason. They are light enough that a person could run for their lives and still take their gift along with them, should they deem them that sentimentally valuable.
I can't tell you what they are, though, until after Christmas. But I can tell you I made excellent use of ye olde iTunes, the spectacular templates included with my word processing software and Google images. Now that I'm done, I can see about a hundred even MORE creative and less spendy things I could have done. But that's how it works. You get all spazzy about Christmas because OMG it's December 22nd and you haven't done anything so you run around Chapters and Starbucks and go freaking nuts with their mesmerizing "gift packs" and well-merchandized miscelany. I know, I get it. But if you just calm down and think about what you're good at and what makes you you, then you end up with some interesting ideas that are going to move your relationships forward.
Okay, I'll tell you one gift, but only because there is NO WAY he'll read this blog before Christmas...or ever for that matter. For Boyfriend's dad, a golf fanatic who I've heard speak maybe seven words in the past two-and-a-half years, I made a CD of guided golf visualizations, found on iTunes. I also made a card reading: Let's Bond. I put a bunch of James Bond photos on it and wrote that I wanted to get to know him better.
It's a multiple choice gift with several options:
a) A round of golf. (I don't play golf, which I reminded him, meaning that he'd likely hate me by hole #3 so we might be better off at the driving range.)
b) Lunch and a glass of wine.
c) A morning run followed by a coffee or breakfast.
d) An afternoon sipping mint tea and talking about our feelings. Followed by pedicures and romantic comedies.
e) A luxury all-inclusive family holiday to Mexico. (Please book by December 24, 2008.)
So. You see what I mean. Some of those "options" are ridiculous and some I hope he doesn't choose, i.e. the golf, but the thought of going for a run and having breakfast? Me likey. I'll offer to make the eggs but then tell him that he makes the world's best omelettes (he does) and we'll go from there. Maybe he'll teach me his secret technique. Bingo bango bond-o.
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