Grandma's Gifts...

So, my mother is talking to me about my Grandmother again. Or more accurately, talking about my Grandmother when I'm around. Which is the same thing, in this case. Grandma is upset, my older sister took gifts from my younger sister, and my younger sister gave them willingly. I understand her issue, but at the same time, it's a very silly grudge to have. Especially for my Grandmother...

Grandma, or Grandmommy as my cousins and I grew up calling her, is what I have termed a "thriftaholic." She shops for deals, at garage sales and thrift stores, if it's cheap, shes interested. My Grandmother personally kept the Salvation Army open for business from the mid-eighties until the late nineties.

But it worked for her, a little too well actually. When I was five years old, I would sit down on her multi-colored carpet in front of the Christmas tree, next to one of my cousins, and open a box bigger than I was filled to the brim with toys. We would spend the rest of the evening digging through our presents, trying to catalog what we got. But those boxes were-and are- like Marry Poppin's purse, seemingly bottomless. By the time I actually got to the last toy in the package, it was Christmas all over again. It's a beautiful system in that regard.

I have a theory, that somewhere in her house, is a secret room with about twenty or so cubbies, our families names written over each one. They are probably filled to boiling with random toys, books and gadgets. Each year, around November, I imagine she goes down those stairs with as many boxes as she feels she needs, and just reaches in and pulls out whatever it takes to fill each one.

Everyone likes getting gifts, and the more the merrier-but Grandmommy goes overboard. She finds so many deals, so many toys that she just knows one of us has to have, a camera here or a statuette there, and she has to buy them. And she can't simply stop finding them-much to my Grandfathers chagrin, it's her calling.

So now, 22, and I'm still getting massive boxes of gifts-the kicker is, she's in a thrift cycle. She buys more than each kid needs in a year, so she buys in advance for years to come. But she doesn't stop buying. In otherwords, she buys half again what she actually gives us. So what happens? Run-on happens. I get gifts in 1994 that I was supposed to get in '93, and so on. So here we are, adults in our twenties, getting boxes full of action figures, Mr. Potatoe Head and friends-with a few priceless gems mixed in. When I was twenty, I got my older cousins gift. A ceramic vas, printed with roses and a ceramic rose. There were recipe books for women being in shape-and a small sweatshirt. Grandma' claimed she didn't mix it up. I still have the vas, the rose was just too much.

But hey, no complaints here. Every Christmas for 22 years I get a big box of some of the coolest gifts you can believe. And now as always, you might be surprised what priceless item you find in a sale, the diamond in the rough as it were. Grandmommy's boxes are always a joy to open, because you literally never know what you'll find. A recipe book about only PB&J, why not? A ceramic rose? Sure. Every year Grandmommy's boxes serve as a reminder, firstly that my Grandmother is still alive, still bringing happiness to our family, and secondly that there is no such thing as a bad gift, its in the act of giving that really counts-to be overly cliche and under-sentimental.

I hope my Grandmother keeps bargain shopping for the rest of her life, it's good to know someone's out there, thinking about me. Even if all the shopping does drive my Grandfather crazy.

If it sounds sappy-well, I can live with that, I get more gifts than you do.