Aunt Mary

Have an Aunt Mary Christmas.

My late Aunt Mary was always a little odd, and as she grew older, looking increasingly like a founding father in mink, her strangeness blossomed. We only saw her around Christmas, at which time either my sisters or I would have to drive to her house and help her load her gaudy gold Cadillac with gifts and inedible dinner contributions.

The presents she bestowed on us were stunning, in the sense that the recipient was always left desperately speechless. One year my sister received jars of ancient, solidified makeup, which we later learned Aunt Mary had hoarded in her position as the local head of a major charity. The makeup never made it to the terminally ill.

Her gifts were monuments to holiday thoughtlessness. When I was in my late twenties she gave me a very used book, representing a level of reading material that would have challenged some kindergartners or Dan Quayle. Each page featured two sentences of small words in large type describing a charcoal sketch of a breed of dog, (”The German Shepherd herds sheep. He is a powerful dog.”)

Aunt Mary’s method of Christmas shopping involved grabbing whatever was within arm’s reach and wrapping it. We were never sure what made her this way. Originally we suspected resentment. She had no children of her own and routinely criticized my parents for the manner in which they raised us, but she seemed to actually believe her gifts were generous, particularly after holiday scotch. Perhaps budgeting the holidays was one way she managed to live comfortably despite having no job.

At first Aunt Mary’s gifts were cruel Christmas disappointments, but soon we learned to look forward to them. They were always as unpredictable as they were useless, and watching the recipient struggle for words of thanks became a supreme form of yuletide entertainment.

My brother-in-law began his lifelong mumbling habit while attempting to thank Aunt Mary for an out-of-date can of kidney pie filling. When she gave me a Paleozoic box of Lipton fudge mix, I can remember responding, “Thanks so much, Aunt Mary. I, uh, (painful pause) I didn’t know Lipton made fudge!” When she ultimately passed on, she gave all her money to the college she’d attended, but she gave us a new family tradition, the Aunt Mary Gift.

Each year my sisters and I shower each other with Aunt Mary style presents. It’s a kind of competition in which the rules continue to evolve. The key characteristic of an Aunt Mary gift originally represented a complex ratio of thoughtlessness to uselessness, but soon we added the element of obscurity. Industry specialty items work well here – olive pit and egg yolk removers, a piece of oddly milled moulding, proprietary hand tools good only on one brand of one model of a certain product, preferably useless. Another option is to give your Aunt Mary gifts a theme. One year my sisters gave me an all-lobster Aunt Mary gift set – lobster magnets, lobster salt and pepper shakers, a lobster wind-up toy.

Ironically, In today’s economy, the Aunt Mary gift has proven to be our most useful holiday tradition. While our retirements and savings have vanished, largely due to amoral Wall Streeters, and as resumes go unacknowledged, our family maintains our holiday spirit and sense of humor.

This year I’m returning to the essential elements of the Aunt Mary gift, but with more creative execution. I am particularly proud of the talking Simpsons action figure I bought for my sister. It’s the classic misdirection ruse. At first she will think it’s an actual gift, but soon she will discover the Aunt Mary touch. On the box is the warning that it only works in conjunction with the “Simpsons action environment,” which, of course, is not included. I also scored big at the Dollar Store (home of the easiest cashier’s job in America) with a dozen pens, seemingly an actual, though cheap gift. However, my sister will soon discover that the pens write with white ink. For a cagey Aunt Mary subtext, I kept two of the pens.

Also found at the Dollar Store, an apparent piggy bank from Viet Nam with no slot to insert coins: the Aunt Mary gift as economic commentary.

I share this story in the hope that others, unfortunate families who may not have an Aunt Mary equivalent, can learn to appreciate and perhaps adopt the tradition of an Aunt Mary Christmas. In these times maybe the gift of humor is the most thoughtful.

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