Lessons learned in gift receiving
Jennifer Ditlevson Haglund
In the fall of my kindergarten year, I was turning 6. I’d moved from Nebraska to Ohio a little more than a month before starting school, and my parents wanted me to make friends. They threw me a big birthday party at a family diner chain known for its variety of hard-packed ice cream.
The party night arrived, and we feasted on personal cheese pizzas, french fries, and ice cream cake in the back-corner booths of the restaurant. Everything was going well until the most anticipated portion of the evening — the opening of gifts. Barbies, Lisa Frank stationery and pencils, gum, coloring books, and Trolls covered the table in front of me. I should have been grateful, but one of the girls got me something I didn’t like.
Despite being a horrid child, I was politic enough to keep my comments to myself. I knew I was lucky to have a real birthday party, one with color invitations, balloons, and more friends than family during the holiday season. It was my privilege and my parents’ sacrifice. That, I understood.
Without my saying a word, however, my mom knew. She didn’t lecture me then, and she didn’t need to.
Along with the knowledge of my parents spending more money than they should have on their selfish little girl’s special day, I also have believed there is something uncontrollably bad I couldn’t change about myself for as long as I had memory. It sounds demented, or at least unfortunate, but I know myself well enough to say I’ve always wanted life on my terms and according to my vision. Deviations and compromises have tested me from the beginning.
Once, my dad wanted to order me a dress from a catalog, but I refused to wear it unless I had the matching hat in the picture. My insistence prompted an inquiry, but the customer representatives told him it was only a photoshoot prop. Fifteen years later, he bought me a blue winter coat. I got angry that he chose to do that when the shabby dusty pink one from Goodwill worked just fine and he knew I needed money for college textbooks. My reaction wasn’t much different when he picked out a necklace for me when I graduated and I was scraping together money to buy a suit for job interviews and didn’t wear much jewelry.
I’d like to say I responded differently when my spouse showed me my engagement ring when he proposed, but it was too flashy.
It took me too long to understand that as amazing as it is to receive those gifts that make you feel understood or listened to, most of the time, the experience teaches you about the giver. Their personalities, talents, means, and intentions are on the line every time they hand someone a present.
That little girl who got me a Troll doll without a gem on its belly might have given her favorite thing, or maybe it was the admission to join with the rest of the girls in the class. The dress my dad wanted to buy for me was less about getting me something I wanted and more about him wanting me to have something he could finally afford. With the coat and necklace, he clued me in, explaining that he got them for me because he wanted me to work hard to take care of my necessities and enjoy the “extras.” He had confidence that I’d find a way to get my books and a suit.
My engagement ring was simply a mistake on the jeweler’s part. He’d set it wrong, and there wasn’t time to fix it before Tim wanted to propose.
Though I’ve been a poor receiver of gifts, I’ve been embarrassed and hurt when something I gave disappointed someone I loved.
When my mother learned I would be visiting the Vatican City when I was 16, she gave me some money to find my very Catholic grandmother a gift. I searched everywhere, but all the gift shop offerings seemed too touristy, chintzy, and unoriginal. So I stole a bottle of holy water from the font, thinking nothing could beat blessed water I knew to be authentic.
A few months later when I was visiting my grandma and we were discussing my excursions, she told me about a “stupid” group of people she’d seen on television collecting water from around the world. She had no idea of my gift, or that a “stupid” bottle of stolen holy water was in my suitcase.
I never gave it to her. Under my bed, it stayed undisturbed for a few years until I woke up dazed one night, reached for my water bottle, mistakenly grabbed the forgotten souvenir and drank it all in a stupor.
As the season of gift giving begins, I remember the times I’ve been on the worst ends of giving and receiving and I’m reminded that this is a time to be charitable, to give generously and thoughtfully while staying in the same mindset while on the other end of the transaction.
Jennifer Ditlevson Haglund is a former news reporter for the Maryville Daily Forum, now living and writing in Ohio.
