A Christmas List

Thank you to Unconscious Mutterings for this week's inspirational list of associations that I enjoy using as writing cues.

Chuck  :: Uncle.

Yes, I have an Uncle Chuck.  Which is amusing, when you consider that his brother (my father) is nicknamed Buck.  Instead of retiring, Buck and Chuck share a downtown Cincinnati office together, where they go five days a week, to work.  My father is an investment wizard and Uncle Chuck is an educational expert, specializing in high school and college placement.  Besides managing their personal business interests, they are immersed in all sorts of service work, are sharp as whips, personable, well-liked, and delightful.  When they are together during family dinners, the stories fly.  No one wants them to stop.  So they don't. 

When I was around ten years old, I started giving Uncle Chuck boxes of Whitman Sampler chocolates for Christmas.  Always the rebel, I continued this practice even after we kids became sullen teenagers and long-haired college kids, and Aunt Mary and mom agreed that our families should stop exchanging Christmas gifts, even though we always spent our Christmas Eves together.  Here I am, 45 years later, still sending Uncle Chuck the same old boxes of Whitman Sampler, year after year.  I don't know if he even likes them.  I do know that he gets a kick out of them, and that they make him laugh.  So this year, since he's such a good sport about it, I tucked an original hand-printed limerick inside the bow.

There once was a young man named Chuck

Who in bridge had the greatest of luck.

When his niece was a child

For her gifts she went wild

And now with Whitman Samplers, he’s stuck!

Insert  ::  Limerick.

These cues go very nicely together, don't they?  Anyway, Uncle Chuck wasn't the only one who received one of my rhymes this year.  Consider this one to Don, who is on the Board of LADD, Living Arrangements for the Developmentally Disabled in Cincinnati.  Instead of a present this year, I made a donation to LADD in his honor (it's my new thing):

There once was a young man named Don

Whose humor was totally gone

I mentioned “honorarium”

And was told to jump into the aquarium

But I still told LADD, “Let’s get it on!”

When I'm good, I'm really good.

Lousy  ::  Christmas commercialism.

In my protest against this seasonal disorder, I made most of my presents this year.  Either I made them, composed them, or donated money in people's honor.  I tried to find ways to give good cheer, and to save my donees the trouble of eventually having to march their gifts down to the local Goodwill store.  I know the guilt of those trips.  All the courageous sentiments in the world, like, "It's the thought that counts" don't help.  I still know that I am giving away the gift for which dear, old Aunt Sally had scrimped and saved to buy (even though she was probably just passing along the gift that her sister, Pat, gave her the year before).  At any rate, the guilt remains.  But homemade presents aren't necessarily perfect either.  Mine are always flawed in some way, not a problem with manufactured items with their smooth surfaces, perfect angles, and slick packaging.  My edges are often ragged, my printing is uneven and slants up to the right (actually all my straight lines slant up to the right, even the ones where I've used a straight-edge), and the decorative ribbon I glued on will probably fall off shortly after the gift is opened.  But maybe that's the sweetness of homemade―the flaws and imperfections, so reminiscent of our human frailties.  And yet as humans, our weakest points are often also our strongest.  If that is so, I wanted to capture that reminder, that sweetness and strength and heart in imperfection, and try to infuse it into friends' and loved ones' Christmases.  And as an added benefit, I discovered that when I make presents instead of buying them, the dire warnings of "Only 10 more shopping days until Christmas" roll right off my back.  Which isn't lousy.  It's pretty terrific.

Here's hoping that you find the sweetness in your imperfect and flawed pre-Christmas weekend, which in fact IS only ten shopping days away from Christmas.  Cheers!

From Louise

Comments

[kathy]

You bring back the true meaning of christmas! Whether making your own, composing them, and most importantly donating to charities in peoples honor! That alone is the best gift of all! Thank-You

[Louise]

Why, thank you, Kathy!!!