‘Tis the season

     I purchased a gift for someone the other day.  It is a hard person to give to because they don’t like accepting and they have definite ideas about what they want. 

    When I was young, and my father was the “boss” of several men, they often thought it was appropriate to give me a gift.   The most time I ever spent with them was usually at dinner – I dressed up in fancy dress for the elegant restaurant and quietly (as in don’t speak) eating my raw vegetables and blueberries.  Occasionally or should I say rarely did they get it correct.  The three gifts I remember most was a what felt like 6’ milk chocolate Easter bunny… well, probably 2-3 feet, Marzipan candy, and fancy dolls. 

     My father would eat milk chocolate and a few cousins would also, but my Mother and I were strictly dark or semi-sweet chocolate.  I have discovered that they are not producing magnificent coca at the Majo University experimental farms although Indonesia is more famous for the beans and the growing cycle.  You can get delicious chocolate products here at specialty shops.   That is not the Chocolate I got.  I got the kind that you kept eating thinking it would get better and it didn’t, but you could not sleep and had a tummy ache.

     While I have always associated Marzipan with our Jewish friends, I also know that it is a very popular treat originating in the orient but made famous in Germany.  What is not to like, sugar almonds… I hated it …too sweat and the almond paste while beautiful in my morning sweats was not good for the funny looking candy.

     When I was in Buffalo, we lived in a factory family neighborhood.  We were not a factory family – had no hand me downs, never wore oxfords and had so many clothes I could go two weeks without duplicating.  There were a few things that I did not enjoy, paper dolls, playing school and play house with doll babies. Even then the dolls that were purchased at the best and most famous toy stores wet, and had natural hair, etc.   I had a box of them…   and I never played dolls, or mother, or even loving aunt with any of them.

     So how do we receive things that are given to us that might not be what we would want or buy for yourself?  Maybe more, what do we give to others?  Generosity has little to do with it most of the time. I can not understand going to the Chaing Mai Sunday market and buying a boatload of anything – scarves and the most common or little purses.  I have done that and then gotten home and thought which of my friends wants this or would use that.  I wore a dress to dinner because my mother made,

but it does not mean I am interested in having a doll.  

     There is an old eastern custom of giving a scarf and getting a scarf.  So everyone passes back and forth until you end with the one you want and then thank each for bringing a scarf.  I would most likely go home on my own.

     So, ‘tis the season to have generosity in both giving and receiving….open-handed and open-hearted.   From a bonny view, giving freely of your time to another is the greatest gift that money can not buy.