Post-Holiday Gift Guilt
A couple weeks ago I went back home to Memphis for a few days for Christmas. The night before I left, I realized I still needed a few presents for my family. I had this realization while working at a booth at a pop-up holiday market here in New York, where I worked until a few days ago. (I am now once again unemployed.)
My coworkers and I had taken a few shots of Fireball in the booth, and before we closed up for the night, I grabbed a robe for my mom, golf shirt for my dad, and a couple pair of our fluffy pants (a crowd favorite) for my brother and sister, not thinking about the fact that I’d already gotten my brother that same pair of fluffy pants last year. (This was my third year working the booth, and I have accepted the fact that I might just work there every December until I die.) My brother was very nice about this when he opened his brand new pair of fluffy pants on Christmas morning. He put them on and said they were very comfortable and didn’t say anything else until the next day, when he sent me a video of him neatly placing this year’s fluffy pants next to last year’s fluffy pants in his bottom drawer.
I showed the video to my dad, who I had noticed was pretty bummed he hadn’t received a pair of fluffy pants himself. He laughed and immediately proposed a trade. He’d give my brother his golf shirt, which he wasn’t super excited about anyway, if my brother would give him his second pair of fluffy pants. My brother agreed to this. I had originally thought my dad would get more wear out of the golf shirt. What I had failed to remember at 11 p.m. on Dec. 22 after six beers and three shots of Fireball was that my dad just goes to Zoom meetings all day and can work in fluffy pants for an entire week if he wants to. But he made a smart trade and now he has some fluffy pants of his own and it’s all good.
I still feel kind of bad for my brother. Not too bad, though. Thank God he didn’t get me any presents and never does.