Christmas Peeve 2: I'm ashamed of my mother's gifts

(Read this first, then Peeve 1.)

Peeve 2: I'm ashamed of my mother's gifts.

Some background: My parents (mom + stepdad) sold their car cuz it's too goddamned expensive to maintain one in Vancouver. You have to understand, Vancouver is not a car-friendly city; politicians here have instituted little laws to discourage reliance on cars (through taxes, high parking rates, no-freeway policy, etc.). Positive payoffs, however, have included cleaner air and water, a healthy culture of walking and biking, beeeeeautiful outdoors, and a relatively civic-minded population. Anyway, we live in the heart of the city where everything's very accessible by walking or public transit -- no problem. In other words, my family doesn't need a private car 90% of the time.

Christmas Day falls within that remaining 10% when I do wish we still had a car. You see, my mother makes me carry all her huge, clumsy, nicely wrapped gifts while we wait for the bus. People look at me weird as I carry them. The damned bags make funny noises as I walk; they draw unwanted attention. I wanna cry. My mother's not the best when it comes to subtlety.

Ahh, huge, not-so-subtle gifts: Let's talk about them. My mom's gifts are typically BIG in size. They're wrapped in flashy, festive colours; they're just eye-poppingly gorgeous. You'd be salivating if you were at the receiving end of them; you couldn't wait to open them.

Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there. My mom's gifts are usually pretty and showy when wrapped that they raise too high expectations in the kids. The moment the kids open them, their bright sweet smiley faces turn sour and confused. And I'm not exaggerating. I've seen it happen so many times. My mother must be in deep denial to not notice it.

Case in point this year:
Gift Target: Michael, a 16-year-old funky Filipino-Canadian dude who's into basketball and hiphop. Loves break-dancing, watches Much Music Vibe, and lately has been enunciating words in rhythmic rhymes à la Afro-American kids you see on TV. Son of a long-time friend of my mom.

Momma used to babysit him when he was a toddler. Needless to say, my mom knows about all his embarrassing kiddie moments. Just like that time when he wet his blanket. Or that time when he cried and cried and cried and demanded that someone took him to McDonald's and buy him a Happy Meal. Or better/worse yet, that time when he got so scared of a carnival mascot, my mother had to rush to the nearest Wal-Mart to get a fresh supply of diapers for him. My mom knows all the gory wet smelly details of these events, and unfortunately, so do we. For some reason, my mom finds it fun to tell the story to a big group of people every year when they get together for Christmas. Poor Michael. (Btw, I've changed "Michael"'s name here. I don't wish to exacerbate his misery.)

So that's Mike. Guess what thoughtful present my mom is gonna give him this Christmas? A king-size winter blanket. With cutesy drawings of animals on it. (I don't know what my mother's thinking. Maybe she finds it cute to remind Mike of his blanket-wetting days?)

Trust me, I did my best to stop my mother. But my pleadings fell on deaf ears.

(not the actual blanket... but you get the point)

Me: "Mama, I don't think Michael will like that. I mean, look at it -- it's got smiling animals on it!"

Ma: "Huh? Oh, shoosh. Mikko will love it. This blanket's adorable!"

Me: "Look, he will NEVER invite his girlfriend in his room if he had this blanket anywhere within visibility."

Ma: "Good, then. The last thing Lynn [Mike's mom] needs is a teenage father for a son."

Me: "Er... I'm thinking, maybe we could get him a couple of CDs instead? Or a basketball jersey, maybe. He likes ball and hiphop, you know."

Ma: "No way! I already talked to Lynn [about giving her son a blanket], and she already agreed."

Me: "D-Don't you think she was just being polite about it?"

Ma: "Look, I'm not spending another $30 for a gift. It's settled. Mikko will like this. Lynn agrees. Could you hand me that bow?"

(Exasperating argument ensues, with me losing the battle to her. As usual.)


Oh well. I guess I'll just have to endure the whole Christmas gift-giving ordeal again. I wouldn't mind it so much if only Momma could *at least* give out her gifts herself. That way I could sit as far away from her as possible, symbolically distantiating myself from her, absolving myself of any responsibility for her...uhm, motherly choice of gifts.

But no. As it happens every year, she'll use me again as her front(wo)man. Which means I'll be handing out her embarrassingly thoughtful gifts on her behalf. I'll be calling out the kids' names, one by one. I'll be sitting prim and proper and smiling like a twit as I greet their expectant faces with "Merry Christmas!" Then I'll hand them their gift. Then they'll open it. And then they'll stare at the Big Revelation with a stunned look on their faces. Then they'll force out a "t-t-thank you. I...er, love it! Haha! *Gulp*"

Then I'll want to say sorry, but can't and won't. I'll want to blurt out, "btw, it's NOT my gift. It's Momma's. I have nothing to do with it."

But instead I'll just swallow it all and suppress my thoughts. "You're welcome, Michael!" I'll say instead. "Would you like me to take a picture of you holding your--er, cute new blanket?" Smile!!!



...God, why do I have to endure this every year???