Christmas Gift Exchange

Wally is the kind of fellow that would appropriately be on my Christmas card list. Our relationship had a bunch of dimensions. I had been his customer, he had been a customer of mine, and we had shared a few social occasions over the last couple of years.

So when mid December came around, and I pulled out a store of Christmas cards, Wally came easily to mind as a recipient. There was one minor obstacle though. Somehow my contact info for him lacked a home address. And since he was not a landline subscriber the phone directories were of no use. Ditto for the online directories. So the card got prepared, but the envelope only showed a name and no address.

In due course the cards I had completed got sent out by post. A handful though, being without addresses, were going to be delivered personally. And so it was that on Christmas eve afternoon, I was driving around finishing up the chore of getting all the cards to their proper places.

The last to be delivered was Wally's. When I arrived at his place I noticed that his vehicle was in the drive. But I had no real intention of stopping in. There were too many items unfinished on my list, and this would have to be a drop and run.

Not seeing a mail box I figured it would be best simply to put it between the storm door and the main entrance door. And that's what I did. But on opening the screen door, I saw that someone else had had a similar idea. There, between the doors, was a nicely decorated gift bag with a wrapped parcel neatly tucked inside.

In that transitory moment, and without any conscious reasoning, I simply slipped the envelope into the gift bag, and closed the screen door. The mischievous part of me wondered if that would cause him any confusion. And as I was driving home, I thought to myself that I could really have messed him up if I had found another card in the gift bag, and had spirited it away, if only temporarily.


Well it wasn't 2 hours later that my doorbell rang, and who should be standing there but Wally and Marilyn. And they were bearing some wrapped parcels. This set my head into overdrive in a flash. The coincidence in timing was too great too ignore. Had Wally come by with gifts triggered by getting a gift himself, which he figured had come from me?

Sure enough that had been the trigger. Turns out the gift bag did not have a card with it, apart from mine. After reading my card, and being a bit perplexed, he later noticed that the bag itself had a small tag on it showing just the names of some niece and nephew of his. Now he was truly confused.

But to be on the safe side he hastily scrounged around for a reciprocal gift for me and drove over to my place.

Well when our stories were exchanged, a good laugh was had by all. But it occurred to me that the symmetry was incomplete. I still had no gift for him. That was soon cured with a run to the back room fridge where I was keeping a number of Christmas hams that I had been encouraged to buy to support a local fraternal outfit.

And there is how our cultural values express themselves when it comes to gift giving at this festive season.