| Every year it begins anew. Crowded, engarlanded shopping streets full of stores and overloaded lines in the catalogue companies - Christmas is all around. Everyone wishes to delight the beloved ones with a little big something. It should be something special, something useful and of course a great surprise. At the best it should be better than the gifts from last year and even outplay everyone else's presents. |
|
That's the theory. In practice some people may have their difficulties finding the proper present for the loved ones. Everywhere the quest for the perfect gift idea is present. In the hope to find inspiration people run around like headless chicken gazing into the display windows. The maybe cleverest already resigned and boycott all the madness about the presents. |
The Cinnamon family suffered the same fate. Christmas advanced in great steps and still presents for some of the notorious related ones were missing. Aunt Emma usually got a box of the finest chocolate truffles for Christmas, but as she just successfully completed the Weight Watchers course, that seemed inappropriate. There was no desire to hint at Emma loosing weight and maybe even enrage her, for that was a very delicate topic.
A similiar problem was a present for Aunt Asha from India. In the past years the Cinnamon family had normally dodged that problem by sending her central-European specialities and therefore had not the slightest clue on what to send to India this year. Nor did the Cinnamon family know what to give to Grandma Hannelore. The only thing they did know is that it had to be something extraordinarily special, as they had been very misfortunate with their present last year. They had given Grandma Hannelore a set of different bath oils even though she had a knee surgery and wasn't allowed to bath anymore. So, Grandma Hannelore hadn't been thrilled at all. |
| But there was still some time to get presents for them. On the penultimate weekend to Christmas there was the obligatory visit to Grandma Inge. As always she had already found all her presents for the Cinnamon family which she happily gave to them during that visit. Back home the Cinnamon family wasted no time and immediately unwrapped those presents. That was a neccessary precaution as Grandma Inge had given them all sorts of disagreeable junk in the past years and normally you couldn't exchange these items in the stores after Christmas. |
|
| Miss Cinnamon was to unpack her present first. And, oh wonder, it was the same body lotion she disliked since the last decade and which she would return again. The family laughed. Now it was Mr. Cinnamon’s turn. He received a pretty ugly alarm clock. But the two sons of the family were not better served. Grandma Inge brought a small toy laser sword, although Max hasn’t been into Star Wars anymore for quite a while. For Chris, there was a dark blue pantsuit. That alone would not have been so disastrous, if it had not been in extra large, although Chris needed small-size. In addition, the whole family was equipped with itching self-knitted socks. Grandmother Inge did it again. |
|
Family Cinnamon discussed what they should do with the gifts. Miss Cinnamon subsequently remembered her missing gifts, too. "Let's hand them on!", she suggested and faced the enthusiasm of the family. They agreed upon giving the alarm clock to aunt Emma and the body lotion to grandmother Hannelore. The blue pantsuit would be sent to India for aunt Asha’s tailoring. Already she had often decorated western clothing with pleasure. Said and done - the gifts were packed and delivered. |
| Christmas Eve, 18 o’clock, gift giving. Aunt Emma opened her present from family Cinnamon with great anticipation. It felt soft. While unpacking she wrinkled her nose. "A house dress, for me?", she thought with confusion as the content became recognizable. "Well, at least in a beautifully noble blue." When she recognized the extra large logo the disaster was completed. Angry she took the enclosed card. There she read: "Dear aunt, this year we thought we’d give you something that you really can use." "Everyone makes fun of my diet!", she screamed through the room with rage. |
| 2 hours earlier. Hannelore grandmother prepared the scissors in order to open the packet from family Cinnamon. A moment of silent prayer, then the unearthed the content. And what she unearthed! "Jesus! What should I do with such a technology-shit?" The conservative Hannelore had been rejecting technical paraphernalia for all her life. "I do not understand it at my age.", she used to say. After a tea to calm down she picked up the clock again. Her eyes seemed to form a big question mark, as they inspected the high-tech clock. She took the instructions in her hands. But her anger grew and grew. The instructions were written so small that she could not read it either with or without glasses on. |
|
Same time, New Delhi, India. The children opened the package together. What came to light confused them alltogether. It was an oblong thing, with a long green bar with a silver handle. They had never seen anything like that before. "What can this be?", Asha thought aloud. Then a few suggestions fell, from spice pounder to musical instrument. Finally, it was agreed to be a wooden spoon and from now on the weekendly chicken soup was stirred with a laser sword.
The Cinnamon family never heard about the mishap, because everybody - as always - pretended to be pleased with the presents. And again it was done for a year...
|
© by Lukas R.
