Lessons in gift-receiving

It was a great Christmas all around, but with all the enjoyment, it was, in some ways, a bit hard on Katherine.

See, she’s of an age (5½) where she still has all the self-centered delight of Getting Gifts, but is beginning to be responsible and aware enough to be held to a degree of politeness and civility. So, if she gets a gift that she doesn’t particularly care for, we expect that she’ll still politely say thank you, and not just throw it aside and look for the next one. And if she goes to the end of the gifts, we expect that she won’t get all sulky and such.

She went through five major giftings this season — the Colorado Contingent, the En Famille At Home Pre-Trip, the Christmas Morning At The Ks, the Christmas Afternoon At The Hills (Parts 1 and 2), and the Christmas Evening At The Dellis — so five or six, and it was wearing. She got a lot of neat stuff (the solid “hit” seems to be a stuff Snoopy, as well as a big fuzzy robe, but the Barbie DVDs appear to have done well, too, and a nifty book about school busses), but also some stuff that wasn’t at the top of her list, and that was, as it is for all of us, a bit difficult to deal with.

As adults, we grin and nod and say thanks and wow, who’d’ve thought they made this in those colors, and classify as back-of-closet / return / re-gift, but overall we employ social graces to make it clear that we (really truly) appreciate at least the thought, and, if need be, will pretend that we appreciate the gift itself, too. Katherine’s old enough now to be able to start doing that, where throwing an unwanted gift down and hurtling toward the next is no longer as cute as it was at 3. And that’s been hard for her to learn.

Heck, some adults never seem to have learned it …

(And, yes, sometimes there’s an element of dishonesty about it all. That’s part of the social grease that keeps society working. While some folks will get on their high horses about “lying” over gifts, and others will make excuses by trying not to actually say that they like that hideous monstrosity that someone had a fever dream might be a nice present, the implication is still there. In which case being strictly honest is no kindness, no virtue, but just being unwontedly mean. Smile, make happy noises, and bring some joy into the giver’s life — as long as it doesn’t encourage them to come up with a matching sequel next year …)

Of course, Kitten did get some pretty good swag, so that should have made it a bit easier, I guess. Not much explicitly in the way of toys and games — lots of nice clothes (which she’s still young enough to appreciate, not of an older kid age where getting clothes is like getting frozen vegetables, a necessity but hardly a gift), videos, books, dolls/figures/stuffed animals, various gew-gaws. I don’t know if it will strike her, once she gets back into watching TV again at home, that a lot of the “I want that!” impulse requests never made it under the tree (which, to be honest, is not a bad thing).

As for me … well, I have a birthday coming up, which my family was always very careful not to conflate with Christmas (lesson learned from my Dad, I guess, who has a birthday in December). Still, I’m always surprised when the first birthday gift appears, usually identified as such during some Christmas gift giving, and it does provide an opportunity to make up for some of the gaps in what I’ve gotten for Christmas (or an opportunity for Some Shoppers to actually purchase stuff for me that’s not socks and underwear, ahem).

At any rate, now it’s time for us to shift into the parental mode of, “Oh, you want that toy/treat/game/doll? Well, your birthday is coming up in a few months …” — and for Katherine to continue to learn how to ask and receive gracefully.