Tiki-tacky spangly-sparkly all the way

Jump to Comments

So the holiday season has officially kicked off. We have started receiving tacky gifts.

Why do people use Christmas as an excuse to buy any useless thing covered in glitter and pass it off as a gift? I wouldn’t want this junk in my house normally. Why do I want it in December?

Moreover, why give a Christmas-themed gift? Normal people in normal situations open their gifts at Christmas (unless you’re at a gift-exchanging dinner, for example). So if you give someone a ceramic plate adorned in candy canes and shaped like Santa Claus’s head, what use will they have for it for 11 months?

Another thing I hate to see this time of year is theme vests. Sweaters are almost as bad but vests are worse. No one looks good in a vest. Big girls look especially bad in vests and the women I see wearing theme vests are almost exclusively big girls. They are also the kind of women who wear Santa hats and a huge jingle bell on a satin cord around their necks. This way you can hear them coming and hide. How are you supposed to take a person seriously who’s dressed like that? Of course, there are also reindeer antler headbands and socks that play “Jingle Bells.” These people also add a barking Santa dog to their desk collection of talking/singing animals dressed as humans.

So back to the craptacular presents.

I was going to keep this out of my blog but hell, it’s my blog and I would say a nicer version of this in person so here it goes. Hawk’s partner makes a boatload of money. He’s been on the incentive program with the practice for a while and sees the highest number of patients in the system. So what do he & his wife give us for Christmas? A glittery ceramic toy shop, complete with bear-dressed-as-human at the front door, that you put tealites in for a festive look. Now the package was beautifully wrapped, to the point where people were attempting to salvage the paper and tie-ons. His wife is also very beautiful and was beautifully dressed. So I thought, “This should be something nice.” Not expensive, just tasteful. Something more Crate And Barrel and less, well, Wal-Mart. I was wrong.

Without a doubt, Hawk’s mother is the best at finding craptacular gifts (which have the added bonus of smelling like cheap cigarettes). Of course, she means well but she has the worst taste in the world. What makes it worse is that Char (Hawk’s no-orange-potatoes brother’s wife) has similar taste so Hawk’s mom thinks everyone just loves her gifts (btw: she sells Avon now so yippee!). The focal decorative element in her (Char’s) living room is a plaster bust of Elvis, I shit you not. So Hawk’s mom’s place looks like a green and red blinking nightmare every Christmas and she attempts to pass that right along in her gifts.

Now that Baby Z is getting older, she’ll notice Gramma’s gifts and maybe say “Mommy gave that to the Salvation Army” or something when Gramma asks, “Where is the Star Trek beer stein I gave you for your birthday?” Or maybe she’ll say, “The angel-winged, pink-marabou-trimmed teddy bear that flaps the wings and claps its hands and plays music that you gave me? I store it in the bottom of my closet and bring it out when you come to visit.”

This reminds me that my mother has taken to sending tacky stuff too. The latest was two one-piece suits for Z (that are too small b/c they’re cheap) and have matching headbands. Yes, headbands. I put one of them on her when Hawk came home one night just to sicken him. It worked. I think I blogged already about the creepy-sounding duck that recited “Now I lay me down to sleep…” that we gave to the dog (who unfortunately sets it off more often than Z ever would).

I feel like giving in to this tackiness and saving all the crappy Christmas shit and displaying it altogether in some room of the house as a shrine to tastelessness. Of course, then my MIL would see it and love it and send more.

I’m not difficult to please, honestly. I just don’t think a gift should be (1) useless (2) unsuited to the recipient and (3) given without a gift receipt so I can return it and attempt to find something somewhat decent at the Liberace House of Crap where it was purchased.

Update: I found the ceramic thing online. It costs over $50 (proof that cheap can be wonderful & expensive can be tacky). I did not realize that it also plays music. Apparently it’s a Collectible and of course there’s a cult of people who love this stuff. That doesn’t make it any less tacky or make it fit in with my decor. It does make me think “eBay” instead of “Goodwill.”

Update #2: I have since had the opportunity to really talk with the giver of the above-mentioned gift (we’d never met before I received it). After getting to know her a bit, it changes my perspective on the gift (funny how that works). While I still don’t love it, we’ll be keeping it. Unless someone gives me an offer…

5 Comments

Filed under Old & Busted