Competitive Gift Giving
Propped up under the Christmas tree like a missile, it was actually tall enough to lift the sagging lower branches of our artificial excuse. Dad, dressed as Santa, reached for the brightly wrapped gift, and read out the name tag. It was for Mum. From Great Aunt Agnes. With Warm Best Wishes. Mum soon had it up on her lap with both hands and we were all dying to know what it was. The day’s photos featured one of her head obscured behind it. That’s how big it was.
She wrestled with the ribbons and was aided by scissors and sharp finger-nails in in the end.
“It’s a spaghetti jar!” was Agnes’s delighted announcement from the kitchen nook as the wrappings finally dropped to the floor.
I remember Mum’s face, crestfallen. The thing could accommodate a rolled-up Sunday newspaper. It was a strange, curvy shape, too.
I wondered if there was somewhere that one could buy bendy spaghetti now.
Mum looked it over from various angles. She was definitely calculating a value on the FTGS or ‘family thoughtfulness gift scale’, which everyone knows but no one ever discusses except when they’re drunk at funerals.
There was silence for a moment.
I was almost expecting her to blurt out “but I’m not even Italian!” and throw it at a wall with a smash then run from the room in tears, broken glass mingled with faux-plastic pasta shapes covering the floor.
I knew her too well to ‘ruin the special day’ though. In front of the children! It was Christmas after all.
“Socks for her next year,” I could see her thinking quietly instead, as she smiled brightly and mouthed “thank you” from the sofa on the other side of the living room.
The day ended with waves from car windows and thank you’s and then we headed back inside, and I noticed the gift back by the Christmas tree.
Our neighbor’s dog, Kimmy, who we were dog-sitting at the time, was nuzzling the cork lid.
Reject!
Gift giving is a game and Mum had lost the first set.
While I was young my Dad travelled regularly overseas with work. He was a coal trade. Hotel matchboxes were brought back as souvenirs of visits abroad. They were scattered all over my room. I saw the spaghetti jar in the glass recycling bin with the milk bottle the next day as I headed into the kitchen. Mum noticed my presence in the reflection of the microwave door.
“It will clog up the cupboard,” she explained from the sink to no one in particular without being asked anything at all. I decided to keep it because that’s what kids do. I took it to my room and wondered what I could keep in it. I decided that the matchboxes would look great stacked inside. Mum’s loss was my win.
Soon the jar was full.
Then I started smoking. In a short while the jar was empty – I could never find a lighter.
Up in smoke.
Here I am many years’ later working in a similar industry as my father and travelling a little bit like he did.
I decided to start a new matchbox collection.
The first box to start it was one that I had always wanted: from the Peninsula Hotel, Hong Kong.
I had tried to get a matchbox in 1002 from this luxurious hotel while passing through as a backpacker.
I had asked the Peninsula Hotel reception staff if they could give me a box.
They said: “We only give boxes to guests.”
I lied and told them that I was a guest.
They asked: “Which floor are you on?”
Thinking quickly and gazing towards the cathedral ceiling of the lobby I said: “The 15th.”
They advised me politely that there are not 15 floors in the hotel and refused to give me a box.
So I stayed in the hotel during 2006 and finally got a box.
No questions this time.
Now my matchbox collection is increasing slowly.
I stopped smoking too, so it might grow.
No spaghetti jars to collect them in, though.
I’ll have to start looking for one.
Or maybe Aunt Agnes has a few more to spare – Christmas is always just around the corner.
