Last Christmas you gave me some tat (and the very same day I gave it away)

It’s a Christmas ex-tat-aganza!

So this is Christmas, and what crap have you bought?

My mother single-handedly greases the wheels of the Christmas capitalist machine. She’s a huge believer in the quantity over quality principle. The more tat the better!

She once sent me an advent calendar from the US to Ukraine. The calendar cost $2 (from Walmart), was manufactured in Mexico featuring chocolate from Poland, and was then shipped halfway round the world.

Postage cost: $20

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Upon my mother’s arrival in Vienna this year, my daughter said, “Gran, what crap have you brought me this year?”

My mother wandered into yet another tacky souvenir shop, her granddaughter closely behind, proclaiming to all the customers, “Graaa-aan, let’s go, this place is full of crap!”

So they went into the cannabis shop next door, showing keen interest in the brownies and gummies while my old man tutted and shouted inside, “These are gateway drugs!”

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If you missed it, my previous post was the one that finally pushed my mother over the edge. This one would probably cause irreversible damage, leaving me with no choice but to unsubscribe my parents and block them – for the love of God, please don’t rat me out!

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Christmas 2001 was epic. I got a bunch of Harry Potter figurines, which sent my then father-in-law into side-splitting fits of laughter. Even more bizarre than buying Harry Potter action figures for a grown man like me? The fact that at no point in my life have I ever shown an interest in anything remotely Harry Potter-related.

My mother also has a weird obsession with Scooby Doo-themed gifts. She seems to have never noticed that it’s Snoopy my sister and I like, not Scooby fucking Doo.

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My American friends will know all about that great Yankee Swap tradition, whether played at work or at house parties. My mother turned this into an art form in giving away the crappiest crap and the tattiest tat she’d accumulated over the years. To be fair, she’d bought most of that herself.

The format: 20 people, for example, everyone has brought a present along and takes a number from a hat, 1 being the best, 2 the worst. Number 1 chooses any present first, number 20 goes last. After picking, you have the option of keeping it or swapping it for anything picked before. Number 1 goes again at the end, having their pick of the lot.

Inexperienced Yankee swappers will choose a prime gift, not realising that it’ll probably be snatched before the end. You have to be strategic in picking something less likely to be nabbed. Typical presents include gift cards, candles, chocolates, wine, coffee, and King James Bibles.

My mother takes charge of our family’s contributions, meaning anywhere from 3 to 7 gifts to unload, depending on how many of us are visiting. If there are 10 or so other guests, then many of these poor suckers might end up with any of these doozies:

sets of sheets
shower curtains
a heavy stone birdbath
gift sets of mysteriously flavoured obscure branded coffee
a 1 litre penguin coffee cup
large plastic garden gnomes

Just to wind my mother up, I would deliberately swap with someone to get stuck with one of her booby prizes, which I would obviously leave at home, no doubt to be wrapped up for future Yankee swaps.

I’m not sure if people found this was amusing or felt sorry for my dear old mother.

Then Santa's elves all laughed at Joel
You're in for a surprise
You're not a special Christmas gift
You're just a booby prize.
Joel the Lump of Coal, the Killers

The Economist had a feature in their Christmas issue over twenty years ago titled Is Santa a deadweight loss? Spoiler alert: yes. An absurd amount of money is spent on presents that people don’t want or appreciate. The best solution? Buy presents for yourself.

I did a couple of Yankee Swaps at work in the early 2000s. These were sadly less amusing because no one took on my mother’s role and I never had the guts to do so. I had to work with these people every day, after all.

My colleague Hench had the Economist’s idea down to perfection. After pretending to mull over which present to choose, he’d unwrap a cocktail shaker set, reacting with a “Wow, what are the chances? This is just what I wanted!”

I was too chicken to take it off him and foil his plans.

Every year, without fail, there’s nothing I look forward to more than the Economist Christmas Double Issue. I savour that sweet bastard and make it last until late spring. That’s the best present I get most years.

Christmas 2015 is a black hole in my memory. I couldn’t get the double issue that year. I haven’t let this go.

I even save them.

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Raise your hand if you’ve had to dress up as Santa for work purposes over the years. Raise both hands if you’ve done it more than once. Raise both hands, jump up and down, and hell “Yippee Ki Yay, motherfucker!” if you’ve been roped into doing it way too often.

Despite these less-than-joyous memories, when I saw local job postings at the start of December for a Santa for corporate parties and work-related appearances, in my desperation to make ends meet I considered applying. I’ve got the beard and a bulging belly (kind of, if I breathe out) but sadly I lack the necessary German language skills.

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I’m easy to buy gifts for: I am grateful for ANY alcohol or ALMOST ANY food product, and books are always appreciated. Nothing will ever be wasted. My mother-in-law gets me a bottle of scotch every year and I hope it will continue post-divorce.

Food and drink are good gifts. They’re eventually gone and any room they take up is temporary.

Books are also the best possible gift, but alas…(the only person I know who has bought me meaningful books in the past 20 years is my sister.)

I shall be as diplomatic as possible: there are people in my life that I am obligated to buy gifts for (see the Economist article above) and they are…challenging (my fault, not theirs, for lacking creativity). Pickiness, dietary requirements, booze restrictions, the usual.

This year I said to hell with it and didn’t buy anyone anything. I gave them all a signed copy of my book, that’ll do.

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I’m duty-bound to do this – Christmas song thoughts

Four (or five) underrated epic American classics

A Christmas Carol, Tom Lehrer (from 1959) – capturing the true $pirit of Chri$tma$
The 12 Pains of Christmas, Bob Rivers Comedy Corp
Mele Kalikimaka, Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters
Don’t Shoot Me Santa; and Joel the Lump of Coal, the Killers

My unexplainable Christmas nostalgia guilty pleasure which I despised at the time (or so I said in order to sound cool)

Stay Another Day, East 17

The obligatory “Fairytale of New York” mention

A classic love it or hate it Chrimbo ditty. Where I’ve lived over the years, it’s virtually unknown and you rarely hear it, so it’s never overplayed. I’ve heard it only once this year, in an unlikely place, which I’ll tell you about in my next festive-themed post (where I go from insulting my mother to taking the piss out of my daughter’s dance concert friends).

Yuck/boke/oh God no – these all make me feel physically ill (seriously)

Santa Baby
Everybody’s Having a Wonderful Christmas Time (except for when they hear this ghastly monstrosity)
That wretched and horrible, sickly disgusting Ariana Grande song that gives me the creeps; how have I not even noticed that until this year?¹

VERY conflicted feelings:
Last Christmas
All I Want for Christmas is You

My 6-year-old adores these, and I can’t not like them anymore when I see how happy they make her. Look, I’m not such a grouch!

I used to play pranks on my colleagues by taping notices to the back of the Teachers’ Room door (the ‘door drive’ as we called it) with a note to this effect: “A kind reminder, we are contractually prohibited from playing Last Christmas in the classroom; plenty of alternatives are available, see Daniel for further guidance.”

My sense of humour (or lack thereof) has got me into the soup over the years. Some people fell for this, others weren’t amused, but thankfully the majority saw the absurdity of it and just chalked it up to ‘Daniel being Daniel.’

Need some last-minute gifts?

Support me or my friend.

You know how to support me – hint: it’s something you read.

Shameless marketing plug: was chatting to my former colleague the other day (well, not really chatting, but having a lesson with her, and yes, I force my students to buy my book) and she said “why is your book only $9.99? It should be a lot more, there’s so much great information in here.” That was sweet of her. (I then doubled the price of our lessons)

Therefore, on 1 Jan, my book will be priced at $29.99, so act now before it’s too late!

Here’s a snippet of my favourite Amazon/Goodreads reviews.

Get it direct or worldwide: Daniel’s painfully mediocre book (he’ll try to do better the next time)

If you have my book, even if you’re not finished and you think it sucks, write me a damn review, please! And a big thanks to those who have bought it.

My friend and former student Lidija from Latvia (that would be a nice band name, no?) has her own homemade jewellery store with some beautiful pieces. You can find it here: LidijaLegzdinaArt

This is not my last post of 2024 (sorry), so I’ll just say Happy/Merry Christmas for now.

Articles from Christmas’ past

1. Boke is a lovely Northern Irish colloquialism for throw up, retch, ralph, upchuck or heave.