AA Gifts & Baskets Idea Blog

Archive for February, 2008

He stared at her, and then suddenly bent double.  This was a much worse pain than any so far.

She was helpless.  Nothing in the world could do to relieve it, except to get him into that hospital.  She clutched him to her, hardly noticing what she was doing, and smoothed his hair.  Edward, Edward, help me, her heart cried.  Edward where are you?  And like her son, in that moment, she felt despair settle so heavily on her and she was sure that her husband was no longer there to help her.

Suddenly the boy straightened up.  “All right, it’s gone. It wasn’t too bad,” he lied, and even managed a faint watery grin.  “Pack my bags then, and let’s go.”

She felt dizzy with relief.  Whether she had capitulated before the force of her arguments, or whether it was the chastising warning of that last pain, she couldn’t say.  She didn’t stop to think.

He watched her lug a case out from one of the cupboards and starts to put his things in, not so quickly or neatly as he had seen her pack for summer holidays, but she didn’t make bad speed.

“Shall I put some books in for you to read, Peter?  Which would you like to take?” and she ran her eye over the brilliant backs of the covers.  Adventure in the desert, the jungle, the town, and the country; adventures on the sea, below the sea, up mountains, in planes.  War books and animal adventures.  His world, from the escape from the safety and security of the room.

He surprised her again; cold, sharp, surprise settled on her.” I don’t want any.  I don’t want them anymore. Throw them out.  No, burn them-don’t give them away.  I don’t want other boys to-“

He broke off and turned his head away.

“But, Peter, you’ve always liked adventure books.”

“They’re not true.  There silly.  The only people who get killed in them are the “bads”-“goods” in those books all get through their adventure and come home and tell their families all about it.  My father wasn’t a “bad”.  But he didn’t come home.”

She finished the packing in silence and went done to phone the hospital and to tell her daily woman what was going on.  Mrs. Walters pointedly removed the cigarette from her mouth and dropped ash on the floor and just listened.

“In hospitable?  Poor little soul.”

“Don’t talk like that Mrs., Walters, he might hear you.  I’ve had such a trouble to persuade him, but he’s agreed to go quietly, and get it over with, and I think it’s the best thing.  He had a very bad pain this morning.”

Mrs. Walters clucked sympathetically and put the cigarette back in her mouth.  “Well. What I say is, I do admire you, and the you’re taking it, Mrs. Farley. If it were my boy, I’d be off with my head with worry, not knowing if I’d ever see him again…”

“Of course, I’ll see him again,” Claire said crossly, but it wasn’t any use arguing with Mrs. Walters.  She did keep the place clean, but she firmly believed that her ideas were right and everyone else was staggeringly wrong.  Claire left her and want upstairs to ready.

The Milkman came.  Peter went to the window and looked down.  He hadn’t gotten his horse anymore which Peter thought was a pity.  The milk float was a mistake.  It whirled miserably, and it was so slow that the other traffic on the road made all the usual noises of frustration until it could be overtaken.  No one likes the milk floats.

But it reminded Peter of the holidays when the milkman had brought his boy round to collect the empties.  The boy had been a year older than Peter, and had boasted about his visit to the hospital to have his verracus burnt off.  More pain than torture in the Middle Ages, the milkman’s boy had said firmly.  Peter decided that it might be a good idea to dust go down and have a word with the boy’s father just to check [without disbelieving his mother’s story, of course but she was the sort of pretty, distracted-looking young woman who often get things wrong.]  If that hospital was a Christmas hospital and whether it was likely that they’d have fun there, which he personally which he could never bring to believe.

He crept downstairs. The pain had eased up a lot. He didn’t waste time worrying about why it should do that, but began to plan his verbal opening.  The Milkman liked to joke and tease.  He would start off by getting in quickly.  “Hello, hello, hello, here’s a young gentleman with a posh speech on his tongue to make, I can tell at a glance!” the milkman was fond of saying when Peter was about, and it was irritating.  Peter knew he must start talking first.  Should he ask bluntly: “Is the Joseph and Mary really a

Christmas

Hospital?” but come to think of it sounded silly.  The Joseph and Mary began to carry weight on its own; the sound about it that is at once suggestive.  It might perhaps be better to find out if it was really called that, or if someone else told his mother the wrong thing.

The milkman was being quiet for once, Peter discovered.  Mrs. Walters was doing all the talking “Stood out against going into the hospital all this time he has, poor little devil, but his mother’s got him to agree at last.”

“Yes, well-“the milkman said, hoping to bring in the story about his boy and the verracus.

Mrs. Walter’s wasn’t going to have that.  “What I say is, shall we ever see him again?  Not a bad kid, that one.  I said as much to his mother.  If it was me, I said I’d be asking my self if he’d ever come out again.  Well I mean to say-hospitals are all alike.  Once they get you in, you never come out.  Look at my Perce-“

Pierce Walters was a tall thin, weedy man who came to do the odd jobs.  He had been by way of being a hero to Peter, because he had the bare minimum of tools which he treasured, and he kept them in a shabby old bag he carried as if it contained gold.  Out of the most unlikely bits of wood and rubbish, that no one else wanted, Mrs.’s Walter’s late Husband, had fashioned things, slowly with a care that had been born of waning energy, but the little boy hadn’t known this.  He hadn’t known that Percy Walters’ days had been numbered then. He only knew that he had liked him and that he had been persuaded to go into the hospital and had never came out.

He didn’t stop to hear of the other similar cases.

Mrs. Walters had known and was loudly citing for the milkman’s benefit, nor that would he have realized that they had been hopeless cases from the state.  He only knew that Mrs. Walters was saying roundly that he would never come back to this dear house again, never see his father when he came home…if his father ever came home.  And Mrs. Walters was speaking in that loud, confident, ringing tone of one who was sure of her facts.

He turned to go upstairs again, but the pain came on again and this time he went grey with it.  His Mother came down and at the same time heard the taxi pull up at the door.

“Are you ready, darling?  Do you think that you could help let you get ready?  We really ought to be getting going.”

He looked at her, his faced pinched and grey and somehow much older. “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?”  He asked of her, and to her fevered imagination, it was the voice of Edward, lighter weight, of course, but the same tone, the same choice of words.

“Why do you say that darling?  I thought we agreed that it was for the best,” his Mother cried.  Her distress communicated itself to him and he believed he was lost, and that she knew he was lost, but there was nothing else she could do.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” he said and he let her help him.  Wrapped in a grim frozen silence borne of grief and despair, a quiet, nagging fear that was worse than the noisy terror of a normal frightened child.  Peter Farely allowed himself be conveyed to the Christmas Hospital.

“No darling, there are masses of people in hospital at Christmas time.  The wards are full as at other times.”

“They are?” He couldn’t believe it.  She smiled at him and pushed the slight advantage she had gained.

“Well, it stands to reason doesn’t it?  Pain just doesn’t wait until after Christmas to come on, now do they?  Pains don’t’ know what season of the year it is, and you’ll always find if there’s fun or a party, or an outing or something nice, you’ll have pains and can’t enjoy the thing.  Pains never sensibly appear when there’s nothing jolly to do.”

He agreed with that too, but looked around curiously shattered/ didn’t understand why.  She decided not to ask, but to push her position she had gained.

Well, for all the people who had been unfortunate enough to be caught in hospital over Christmas and for the sake of the nurses and doctors who had to stay there over Christmas to look after the sick people. They had a lot of fun and decorations and nice food, just the same as if you are at home.

“I don’t believe it!” he exploded

“It’s true.  Its stands to reason-they want their fun too-and it’s nicer, I should think to have Christmas with dozens of other people with you to enjoy it!”

“How can they enjoy it if they’re ill?” he pointed out after some thought “Not ill, exactly, but on the way to being better only not quite fit enough to go home, if you see what I mean.  And some hospitals have television people come and film them so people at home can see the fun their having.”

Peter really couldn’t accept that “Now I know you’re making it up.”

“But I’m not, darling, truly I’m not.  We had it on last year, now didn’t we, only you didn’t watch the screen, you were too engrossed in you  new train set.”

That was a mistake, referring to the year before.  His father had come home on a flying visit. and had been lying flat on his stomach on the floor with Peter, playing with the train set too.  Peter’s lips trembled, but he sternly bit on them and said, “Oh, that! I saw it, but I thought it was a sort of play got up in the studio, not real at all.”

“Oh, Peter,” she said helplessly.  Other mothers didn’t seem to have this trouble.  The Jones children down the road had all been in hospital to have tonsils removed, and the young Marhams, one of whom was Peter’s age, had made no fuss at all when one had been run over and had a broken leg, and the other two had fallen out of a tree and had concussion and cracked ribs.  Their mothers had just phoned ambulances or called the doctor, and briskly gathered things together in cases in off they were bundled, and no questions asked.  But Peter had always seemed different.  A dreamer, not a boy to climb trees or get run over.  A boy who thought and planned, rather than blundered in and out of trouble.  A boy who preferred to read adventure books and dream of the time when he would go to the

Middle East like his father and work with the oil wells.

“I won’t go.” Peter said suddenly, in a rather frightingly final tone.  “Well, anyway, I won’t go for one week, until we give father a chance to come home.  Then we’ll see.”

She gasped.  “No Peter we can’t wait that long-“It was blurted out before she realized it.  All she could see was the grave face of the doctor at the Mary and Doctor Threadingham Memorial Hospital.  A big hospital, with a fine staff, but quite clearly they hadn’t liked this case and they wanted the boy in at once, before matters got any worse.

Peter misconstrued.  He stood up, still bent a little, and not removing one arm from his tummy.  “It’s like I thought.  You really don’t expect my father to come home, do you? Not ever.  I expect they know he’s dead already,” and his face puckered…

He turned sharply away.  She felt he had cut at her with a knife.  She took the blow, steadying herself, and then returned to the attack, because she must do this.  She was all alone now, and Edward would expect her to do it; reasonably, not clumsily and easily. He would expect her to put it to the boy so that he would go willingly and cheerfully, not just throw his things into a case and bundle him into a taxi ignoring the frozen grief and fear that would render him incapable of protesting even if he wanted to.  Edward had had a lot to say about the way some parents take their children to the new strange world of hospital.

She tried again.  “Darling, don’t say such things.  Listen, I love him you too, you know.  He belongs to me as well you.  He’s so dear to me-“

“Then why did you let him go out to that old desert to get lost and shot at when you knew all the time that there was fighting going on near?  I didn’t know there was fighting.  Nobody told me, or else or I’ve asked him not to go.  We’re not so hard up, are we, that father has to go to that place to earn his living?”

It was the worst reproach of all.  Hadn’t she begged Edward to apply to stay in

London at the main office until the trouble died down?  And hadn’t Edward just looked at her, and before saying quietly, “You know I can’t do that, Claire! His look had reproached her for putting to him the coward’s way out.

“People have to go to places like that dear, It wouldn’t do if everyone to stay home just there was a bit a trouble-we can’t run and hide until the nasty things stop, now can we?” He went to the bunks and sat done on the edge of the bottom one, thinking.  She flayed herself into saying some more.” Darling, I promise you it will be all right.  I’ll come and visit you every day-the mother’s do you know.  And the minute I hear from Daddy or about him, I’ll let you know.  If I can’t come at that moment to tell you, I’ll telephone the ward and the sister will come and give you the news,”

“She will?”  He couldn’t believe that.  “Why?”

“Because she’s kind, they’re all kind up on the wards.  Its fun, you’ll love it.”

“I didn’t see anyone kind when I went to the hospital to be poked and prodded by those men in white coats.  No fun, either.”

“That was only outpatients, darling.  They’re very busy and they have to get through their work in time to close the clinic for the day, but on the wards where people lie in beds and eat nice food and have fun, there’s plenty of time.  She swallowed.  “At this very minute, they’re all very hard at working making decorations to put up.  Did you know that?  And the night nurses put presents on everyone’s bed at Christmas time, and they have shows and lovely food-“

“They do?” He was still suspicious.

“Darling, actually it’s a proper Christmas hospital,” she said, making her last effort and deciding that if she must diverge from the truth it had better be a fine and splendid divergence, and completely convincing.  “Well look at the name of the place-that should prove it.  Do you know what they call it? 

The Joseph and

Mary

Hospital.  There, now!”

You always hear the stories of receiving gifts that were quite sweet in gesture, but really don’t fit into your lifestyle or tastes. This ranges from the Christmas tree sweater that glows in the dark to the poofy pink taffeta dress you might have worn when you were 7, but not at the age of 27. With every gift, you can always find something worthy to dwell on, even if it is a bit of humor wrapped with a bow.

My father often jokes with me about my affection towards a gift that comes from the Dollar Store. I must admit you can find various quirky additions to any holiday at this inexpensive chain of stores. When money was tight, it was this store that provided the decorations for my entire house and Christmas tree without giving a hint to the amount of money spent. It’s truly amazing what you will find at the Dollar Store, from cleaning supplies to candles to inexpensive alternatives for movie theater treats. Anyhow, for about five years running, my father would question where some of his gifts came from, making references to one of the cheapest places around promising the purchase of almost anything.

This has been a long running joke within my immediate family because I have a history of creating decorative, Dollar Store-themed baskets for the holidays. One year, for my brother, I stuffed his basket with anything to do with his cell phone. He was always losing his adapter to charge his phone, so I bought him two of them. I also included a set of earphones for the car, an extra cell phone case, even an extra battery. All of these items cost a dollar; all of which were used.

As for my father, he has received Dollar Store baskets pertaining to some of the items he often uses. One year, the theme was garden tools. He found delight in telling me how quickly the stem cutters broke when he went to trim a rose bush. The next year, he received a basket filled with cleaning and maintenance supplies for the car. You can never have too much oil, carburetor fluid or car wash supplies. The year after that, I packed a basket full of various tools, such as wrenches, screwdrivers and pliers. I don’t feel bad about these gifts because I know they will eventually get used. For my mother, a basket filled with scented lotions and soaps has brought a smile to her face. I really lucked out when a supply of Oil of Olay eye creams found their way to the Dollar Store.

I have always taken pride in never failing to give a gift on special occasions. It didn’t matter if I had to make a present with my own two hands, but I made sure my loved ones would be opening someone from me on their special day. Over the years, my budget has improved to the point where I no longer have to depend on the Dollar Store for the bulk of my gifts. What started as a way to cope with dreary financial circumstances has now become a welcomed family tradition. 

The word holiday has related but different meanings in English. It was originally a combination of the words holy and day. These days originally represented special religious days. The word holiday has changed to mean any special day of rest, not counting weekends.

The problem of course is that we don’t rest on the Holidays. We spend considerable time looking for gifts or preparing for vacation. Unfortunately, when we went to school they emphasized the Three “R’s”; namely

Reading, Rwriting and ‘Rithmatic. All that training to be diligent and to work hard started us thinking that we should be busy working hard all the time. Now they know better and in schools they emphasize the Four “R’s”; namely

Reading, ‘Rwriting’, ‘Rithmatic’ and my personal favorite ‘Recess’.

Educators now describes the ability to play as one of four signs of a child’s health and well-being, the other three are eating, sleeping, and toileting. At the same time parents, teachers, and health professionals report a steady decline in children’s ability to play. This appears to be the gift that we wee taught in school that we are passing along to our children. Psychologists say that 95% of children are creative. They also say that only 4% of adults are creative. Solving our day to day problems in a creative manner is absolutely critical in today’s high-tech, complex society. This is why time off is so important.

This is also where Holidays become essential. These special days recharge our batteries and let our minds roam freely to grasp solutions to the problems in our everyday lives. In the English-speaking world a holiday can actually mean a vacation or period spent away from home or business in travel or recreation. A holiday can also be a day set aside for celebration or a special day on which school and/or offices are closed, such as Labor Day. These holidays or ‘Days Off’ as we call them, are really important to our mental and physical wellbeing. The term ‘Playwork’ has been termed to describe the encouragement and risk assessment to give people on holidays the ability to play within the bounds of safety. This can include a relaxing walk in a park, a visit to a zoo, a museum, a musical event and other venues.

Sometimes just the gift of time off is all we need to rejuvenate or re-create ourselves. On other occasions we wish to not only re-create ourselves but entertain ourselves at the same time. On these special occasions, we want to participate in a celebration of the holiday. Some examples that come to mind would be Christmas and Easter. For some people who want more, they may make up a celebration of the holiday, (day off or not) like Halloween or summer solstice, or the start of vacation.

A favor or gift that you can give someone would be doing some ‘Playwork’ planning for them. You could suggest and plan a celebration or party in anticipation of an upcoming holiday. You may wish to make this an annual event so that the anticipation for your event can build from year to year.

Some examples might be: Queen Victoria Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Remembrance Day, Martin Luther King Day, Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras, Purim, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Shavuot, Independence Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Ramadan, Halloween, Los Dias de los Muertos” (Days of the Dead), Thanksgiving Day, Chanukah, Christmas, and finally Kwanzaa.

Just pick any one day and create a special event or celebration to occur on that day. Gifts could be exchanged and special foods could be prepared or purchased to add a new feature to your unique celebration.

When someone does you a good turn in life the most obvious reaction is to give them something back in return, to show that this good deed has been appreciated. Being a working parent there are times that favors are called in to save children from being abandoned at the schoolyard entrance due to some unforeseen circumstance in the daily working schedule, or a myriad of other little dramas. A small gift in this circumstance will go a long way to show your appreciation, for a kind deed.

My husband and I worked in the vineyard industry for many years; one of the best things about working for a company that produces alcoholic beverages is that the workers are paid a bonus each month of wine. This was great for the first few months but after a while the wine started piling up in our spare room as neither my husband nor I was drinkers.

Things got even worse as we were new to the town we were living in and didn’t know many people, only a few school moms, who were great ladies and always willing to help out. Our families who were over 500 miles away weren’t interested in wine either. One day I had a bright idea to get rid of the wine, promote the vineyard we worked for and show our appreciation to people who were generous enough to help us out in times of need.

Anyone who did a good turn towards us was given a bottle of wine from our stockpile, with a little bow and small thank you note attached. It was amazing how much people appreciated our little gifts and how much more willing they were to offer assistance when we were in need. Also we felt better as we were giving something back in return and didn’t feel as though we were taking advantage of anyone’s good nature.

A gift can come in many forms, and can be an ideal way to show appreciation for a good turn. When you are generous toward your friends and acquaintances they are generous toward you in return, and will help you along in life and think of you even when you are not asking for something. This is a show of friendship and the true spirit of human nature.

From time to time I still catch up with those friends and bring along a bottle of wine and a cheerful smile for no reason at all. We all managed to benefit from those bottles of wine in some way or another, and they provided a great foundation to form lasting relationships with friends. Good people, who expect nothing in return for their kind deeds, appreciate it when their efforts have been acknowledged.

God chose Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and take them to the promised-land. Moses’ life was not without its failures, though, he couldn’t trust enough that God wouldn’t lead them astray and instead of asking God for directions chose to wander around in the desert for 40 years.

At this point we have found through the millenniums that nothing much has changed. All men would rather wander lost in the wilderness than having the appearance of being weak and stopping to ask for directions.”

Men are notorious for not asking for help, especially when it comes to asking for directions. They’d much rather travel miles and miles, trying to figure it out on their own, rather than admitting they are lost. This is one of the biggest complaints women make against men, as Deborah Tannen points out in her book, “You Just Don’t Understand” (Morrow, 1990).

Perhaps childhood conditioning has something to do with this tendency. Most often, little boys are taught to be independent and not act like sissies or babies by constantly requesting help. Even though this appears to be a “manly” thing to do, in reality, it is not. If a man needs help or assistance, he needs to ask for it.

If women understand that this merely is one of the “sex differences” in communication, they can help their mate to realize it is okay to ask for help. Instead of arguing, you can say instead, “I know you’d like to figure this out on your own and that you probably have a good sense of direction, but I would prefer if we could stop and ask someone for directions.”

An alternative to this is asking for a “pit stop” to use the rest room and then asking for directions. Once you have them you can advice your spouse that they pretty much had things worked out according to the gentleman in the store.

By saying one of these you are allowing the man to “save face,” as you are now talking his language. In essence, you are allowing him to help you by honoring your feelings of discomfort about the matter.