Christmas Gifts

Something happened at work today and I thought I would jump on a steal some clandestine time on my blog to tell all.

A lot is said about Christmas and it's worsening commercialisation - for any Americans reading, that's how it's spelt in English English!  The shops stock a vast array of Christmas banality and tat from mid October and there seems to be a zombie like operation in every town and city to 'get the shopping done.'  Now to me, this seems like a ridiculous paradox.  The whole point of buying a gift is that it shows someone you have spared a thought for them and taken time out of your busy schedule to select a present that will touch that person and make them feel loved.  My experience paints a completely different picture of the 'intimate' relationship between a gift and it's purchaser.  The vast majority of people treat the buying of gifts as a duty and a task that must be gotten out of the way. 

I'm a catering manager and decided to purchase my supervisors a nice bottle of wine each.  Great care was taken to discover what their preferred colour, brand, grape was.  I'm a beer drinker so I need a lot of guidance!  Now it just so happened that one bottle cost me £6 and the other cost me £20.  I bought nice gift wrap, carefully selected greetings cards and even included a small personal verse to thank them for the work they have done over the past year.  We gather for drinks, maybe the odd mince pie or three and I proudly bestow my gifts on my trusty subordinates.  After genuine shrieks of approval and surprise, the bottles of vino were freed from their gift wrap prisons and observed.  They were observed by one person a little more studiously than the other.  After some serious observation, one of my colleagues observed that her bottle of wine was considerably cheaper than that of her peer.  This observation was shared with the group in a very matter of fact way and we hurried to finish our coffees and escape the tension.  Some observations should be kept to one's self!

This really upset me as I had spent a reasonable amount of time researching wines and getting what I thought to be the correct one.  Next year, they'll get a kiss and my best wishes!