Didn't We Almost Have It All

With a nod to Whitney Houston, Andrew Leci questions what you get as a gift for the person ‘who has everything’?

- Andrew Leci

A few years back I found myself in London over the Christmas period. Having been an expatriate for quite a while, it was not a common occurrence, but it necessitated a series of events – family reunions, lots of eating with several other people, and festive cheer – that can be either pleasures or pains, depending on how favourable one feels towards one’s family and friends.

My sojourn also created the requirement for buying lots (and lots) of presents, and I don’t enjoy shopping. Quite frankly, I’d rather be poked in the eye with a sharp stick than trawl around a mall, and I have never understood the concept of ‘window shopping’. How many windows can you buy in a lifetime anyway? And how do you get them home afterwards? I digress.

Shopping, however, was a necessary evil that had to be embraced, and I told my partner that we were going to one store and making all of our purchases there and then. I picked out bits and pieces from various departments, in my manic version of a ‘supermarket sweep’, accompanied by the words, “Let’s just buy a stack of stuff and sort out who we give it to later.”

She was… horrified. “You can’t buy presents like that!” she screeched – the relationship didn’t last that long; can’t think why. “Could you get any more impersonal?”

I tried to explain that we had a whole load of gifts to buy, with limited time and limited patience (mine, all mine) as far as shopping was concerned, and this was merely the most efficient way of doing it. Count the number of recipients. Procure a similar amount of generic gifts. Nothing tatty or tacky; good stuff; but slightly nondescript, just in case.