No, this isn’t a Christmas post, I know it’s only October.
It’s a post about random gifts that just happen to have been given at Christmas, OK?
Anyway.
Some people have the talent to select the most wonderful gifts; gifts that make the receiver – and the giver – glow with joy for hours afterwards.
Other people have the talent to select the most odd – bordering on unsuitable – gifts.
Both sets of people probably take the same amount of time to choose these things; neither action is undertaken in haste.
It’s the choosing that’s at fault, not the time allocated.
For example, last year one of the Christmas gifts I bought Daughter was a bag of ‘Fairy Poo’.
It wasn’t really Fairy Poo, just a bag of yoghurt-coated raisins packaged up as Fairy Poo.
And (pardon the expression) Daughter told me they went down really well and that she loved them.
I understand that her mother didn’t – didn’t like the concept rather than the flavour – but one can’t please all of the people all of the time.
That wasn’t a peculiar present; it was an example of off-the-wall thinking – a brilliant gift for a young mind (coupled with everything else she got!).
But that’s the children end of the market.
Over on the adult side of things it all looks pretty dire.
The annual parcel from dotty Aunt Dotty that contains the full range of crocheted underwear for all the family is one thing.
Just smile and put them away on top of the wardrobe until the end of time.
But what about the other things?
The things that go beyond tasteless?
In a Christmas past we’ve been given an Anne Summers kinky sex kit.
WTF?
Are we supposed to dress up in vaguely medical, PVC clothing and cavort about with a fake stethoscope whilst playing rude games, pausing only to think fondly of the people who gave us the gift?
Was it given on a kind of ‘think of me whenever you use this’ basis?
If so…
Eeeew!
I really don’t want their image in my head during such moments of intimacy.
Not, he hastened to add, that we would be so inclined to use sex aids in this manner.
Or use this manner of sex aid.
Or something.
B.