Friday, December 26, 2014

Gifts




For Christmas this year I got...

Nothing.

There were a few holiday cards I was mentioned in. An old lady brought the library staff one of those tins of Danish cookies. She gave it to me to pass around. I know her pretty well and like to think I was as much as one fifth of the reason for the gift.

My colleague Dave was given a ten dollar gift card to our coffee shop. I was bitterly jealous and reminisced overmuch about a few years running when a guy would give me a tin of fudge every year. 

Maybe I was just a better clerk back then. Does it all come down to one Christmas gift, or maybe the one or two complimentary comments in the comment box every year?

"I just want to commend your library for the excellent service I received today. Thank you."

That one was totally me!

Someone made a plate of Christmas treats for one of our librarians, but the staff member they gave it to put it onto the break room free food table instead of giving it to the librarian. It was devoured down to the polymers in the plastic plate before the librarian even knew the gift existed. It's the thought that counts. Though if I had to I would describe the expression on that librarian's face, when he encountered the tattered remains of what may have been the only library Christmas gift he has ever received in 30 years of library work, as, well, rather Eeyorish.

We roll with the punches.

We don't exchange Christmas gifts at my house. Possibly because we're Jews, or because, despite the ringing sound of my unpleasant older brother wandering through my childhood yelling "Christmas is an American Holiday!" it's not, quite. Or we don't exchange gifts because, yes, probably this one: because somewhere in here I think we already have everything.




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