A Story From Christmas Past

Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you were with loved ones enjoying the magic of the season! I know I was exactly where I wanted to be - in my home (the kitchen, mostly) with my wonderful husband and sweet girls and my parents. We have so many blessings to celebrate and thoroughly enjoyed the day.

As you age, you begin to realize that giving truly is better than receiving. Particularly when people give you things you don't like. Kidding, of course. But the old adage it is better to give than to receive really does hold true. This year, everyone seemed happy with the things I had gotten for them. The girls excitedly riped through the wrapping paper and were overjoyed by the treasures inside. My mom was very excited about the John Prine tickets I got for her in addition to a DVD and a decorative piece for their house. Dad seemed happy with his gifts from me, although to him the best gift is being with his family on Christmas.

There were no disasters when it came to what I had gotten for Mike this year which is always a welcome change when I think back to The Year Of The Teapot. I cannot remember what year it was, but I'm thinking it was Christmas of 2007. Mike and I were home for Christmas with our girls and my brother and his (now former) wife and daughter were in town as well. As usual, there was no shortage of sarcasm in the room the entire day. At one point we began saying that what we would really prefer to the gifts we had been given would be the cash equivalent so we could go out and get what we really wanted. Each eagerly-awaited package would be opened and then a shout of "CASH!" would follow indicating that it was a nice effort, but that we'd still prefer the cash used to purchase it. All of this was in good fun of course, as it always is. Until...

Mike was opening his final gift from me. I had gotten him a teapot from Williams Sonoma because he and I had both recently begun drinking tea at night. He had mentioned an interest in having one, so I got him a nice one from a nice store. Although it wasn't terribly creative or expensive, I still thought that it was a thoughtful gift and thus would be well-received.

So Mike was unwrapping it and began to see the box as the paper was ripped away.

"Oh, yeah, a tea pot", he said sarcastically, thinking (or perhaps hoping)that this box was a decoy and his real gift would be something quite different.

"No, Mike, it really is a teapot", I said gently, hoping that he would not get his hopes up that there was something better inside the box.

"Right, Maggie. Sure. It's a teapot.", he went on to say. Now he was trying to break the tape at either end of the box so he could reach in a pull out his real gift.

"Mike, I'm serious. It is a teapot. Listen to me." I said emphatically. Now I was beginning to have tears stream down my face. For one thing, I cry over everything, so of course this would happen during all of this. But another thing was that this was happening in front of my parents. In front of my brother. When Mike discovered that this gift really was a teapot he was going to feel SO bad for making fun of it. I wanted so badly for him to quickly remove both feet from his mouth and close it before he tried to insert them again.

"Maggie, I know it's not a teapot", he said with almost a tone of irritation. I mean, WHO would give their husband a teapot for Christmas? The very thought of it is ridiculous! It was as though he wanted me to drop my act and just admit that the teapot box was hiding something wonderful inside.

Sadly, it was not. This banter went on for what seemed like 17 days. I was crying and then laughing because I couldn't stop crying. He got a look of confusion on his face; not knowing exactly what was happening and whether or not this was all some kind of joke.

He reached into the box, saw that it was a beautiful, stainless steel teapot and immediately said, "Well, I love it. It's really nice. I mean, we DO drink a lot of tea. It's a very thoughtful gift. I just wasn't expecting..."

He understood now why I was crying. The realization was hitting him and it was not lost on him that he and I are not the only ones in the room. He thought he'd hurt my feelings (which, he sort of had). But truly I just felt so bad for him because in the moments leading up to this, he was basically indicating that no person in his or her right mind would ever give this as a gift. Not that he had anything against teapots (he and I both do, now). I guess it was just something that a (straight) man in his early thirties wouldn't really get too jazzed about. Who could blame him?

I was able to dry my tears and pull myself together, of course. We went on to have a scrumptious meal as we do every Christmas and still enjoyed a sarcasm-filled afternoon. As a result of this little blunder though, my brother nicknamed Mike "Teapot", but it didn't really stick. Mike has gone on to be overly appreciative of any gift I gift him which was a nice side benefit of having to live through this experience.

The moral of this story is to never make fun of a gift until you are absolutely certain that what you are making fun of is not what you are opening. Also, that it is better to give than to receive. Oh yeah, and stainless steel teapots are very handy for hitting someone over the head.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!