My mother sighed when she looked over my Christmas wishlist a couple of weeks ago. "Why can't you have something normal on there for once?" I think she'd spotted the book "Keeping rabbits and poultry on scraps". Or maybe it was the subscription to Home Farmer magazine. Then she saw Martin's wishlist. Cue second big sigh. "Can't he just have something normal like socks or a sweater?" Might have been the American import DVD on the Kokoda Trail that rang her alarm bells. Or the spirit level. Or half inch drive ratchet.
My fears that my mother thinks I'm abnormal were confirmed later when she was consulting Martin about my present. "Isn't there ANYTHING girly she wants like perfume or knickers?" Ermmm....no. Sorry mum. You just don't have a "perfume-and-knickers" kind of daughter.
You have a "men's-cardigan-wearing, chicken-poo-raking, growing-her-own, so-what-if-there's-cat-fur-on-the-sofa, muddy-boots in the house, everything-made-from-scratch-and-recycled, preferably-through-the-chickens" kind of daughter. And your son-in-law's the same. Minus the "men's-cardigan-wearing" because obviously I wear his cardigans and he doesn't get a look in.
We've tried to get away with not doing lists, but so many of my friends and family ring us up and ask us what we want because our eclectic tastes and non-consumable lifestyle scare the bejesus out of them. Their demands for a list grow very loud by the first week of December so we put them out of their misery.
But secretly, I'd love someone to really *get* me and just buy/make/recycle something without guidance or lists - is that wrong to wish that? It's not that I'm not grateful for what I receive - I really am, but I know that there are gifts that I simply won't ever use and have been bought out of a sense of HAVING to get me something. Anything. But then maybe I'm guilty of doing it to. When I hand over something homemade, maybe the other person smiles sweetly and secretly thinks "Oh for heaven sake. Why couldn't she just get me body lotion or something? I hate homemade stuff." I know someone who sees a pot of homemade jam and shudders at the thought of all the bacteria swimming around on the top from someone's fingers.
Food for thought.
What if instead of buying stuff we exchange time vouchers? I could offer a full car wash, t-cut, wax and valet. What about a day's house cleaning? Or ironing absolutely every item in your ironing basket? I could catalogue your DVDs and CDs. Or polish your silver/furniture. I can paint and decorate. I could go through your digital photo collection and delete every bad, out-of-focus and too-dark shot (that alone could take someone all day if they came here - we are so lazy in that regard). I could clean out your chicken shed or muck out your guinea pigs or something.
Just for laughs, here's my real Christmas wish-list:
My kitchen, conservatory and laundry floor to be tiled
An explanation of why I burn custard. Every time.
Everyone in the UK to sponsor a child in the third world
Help tearing out my front garden beds and digging a new one under our bay window.
Oxo to tell me why she's not laying anymore and if she's really turning into a boy. I heard her yodeling this morning and it sounded distinctly full-throated and boy-like.
Someone to build my new raised vegetable beds on the lawn
More patience with people who judge me because they don't understand me
Someone to get my knitting machine ribber working
Charlaine Harris to hurry up and bring out the 10th Sookie Stackhouse novel
An answer from the cats about why there was an apparently fat, once-healthy and now half-decomposed mouse in my hallway IN FULL VIEW. The rug is not THAT patterned I could have missed it for weeks, but deep down I know I smelled THAT smell a few days ago and didn't know what it was
Martin's teeth to be good again and for them not to hurt him any more
Anyone help me out here ;-))