I’m really torn about the Christmas season. I like receiving gifts, but I don’t like shopping, so I’m not great at giving. I like watching a lot of Christmas movies, but there’s a lot of absolute drek that gets passed off as holiday themed, but is just boring or silly.

What I truly love is spending time with friends and family. I even love the chance to spend festive time with coworkers. That part is a no brainer: have some snacks, have a few drinks, and catch up or make merry.

I’m a sucker for the nostalgia, and remembering time spent with my family when I was a kid, but it also is a stark reminder that those days are gone, along with many of the extended family with whom I so enjoyed spending time. The obvious solution is to cherish the time with my own family and friends now, and to look forward to the future with them, but it’s not easy.

I don’t like the excesses of gift-giving at Christmas. That’s something of a bah humbug attitude, but I think the complexity of gift-giving gets in the way of enjoying the spirit of the season. It introduces a minefield of potential problems. Every year, though, I fall into the trap of wanting to make those I love as happy as possible, and hoping that “buying things” will pull that off.

Basically, the juggernaut of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas is a holiday mountain range you have to climb but there’s no way to train for the effort required. Nine months ago, when winter finally ended and we began to enjoy spring and summer activities, we weren’t thinking about what to get people for Christmas, or how to stock the pantry for all the meals and snacks and drinks. We’d be fools for doing that anyway because the warm months pass us so quickly.

I have to get over myself when it comes to gift giving. I find it exhausting, both with the act of shopping and wrapping, and also not being sure I’ve gotten the correct things, or amount of things, or spent the appropriate amount of money. I just have to put on my boots and start climbing that mountain.

I sense an opportunity for an app that you dial in the vibe you want to achieve for Christmas—chill, vibrant, or warm—make a list of family and friends—ranked by how much you love them—and how much you can spare to budget for the whole thing. The app spits out shopping lists, sends out a schedule of events, and offers to have things delivered. Gift wrapping is optional, and not necessary for the canned ham.

The trick is to get everyone you care about to abide by the app’s terms and conditions.

What I really love is the chance to fight back against the glowing darkness of winter. I thank the stars for the wisdom of our ancestors to celebrate the winter solstice by getting together to drink and eat and make merry. I suspect it was a week-long festival at some point in our not-so-distant past where lots of beer, wine, and mead was chugged, food was consumed, and you laughed your butt off with your friends and family.

What I don’t love is what Charlie Brown, Cindy Lou Who, and the Grinch don’t love: the over commercialization of Christmas.

I’ve heard that, in Iceland, they celebrate on Christmas Eve by exchanging books, and then folks go their separate way to drink hot chocolate and read. That version is probably promoted by the Booksellers Association to sell more books, but it sounds kind of good. If that book exchange were at the tail end of a week-long festival of binge drinking and over-eating, I’d probably be all in.

The solution to my problem with gift-giving has been hiding in plain sight my entire life. Instead of chasing after the perfect gifts, as defined by the Madison Avenue advertisers stoking my fear of buying the wrong thing, I should go old school and only give gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Gold in an obviously good gift because it shines up nicely, can be turned into a number of different things due to its malleability, and is a solid investment strategy in the unstable market conditions caused by today’s politics. If I were trained as a goldsmith, I’d buy gold in bulk and fashion small toys in the shape of well-know Christmas characters, like a tiny nativity set, or the cast of Die Hard; instead, I may give out investment securities in a gold mining venture I just heard about from a complete stranger who called to offer me the opportunity.

Frankincense helps reduce the signs of aging when applied as part of an essential oil. The products on the market with actual frankincense are kind of pricy, so I’ll probably go with tubes of Gold Bond lotion.

Myrrh has anti-bacterial benefits that make it useful in oral care and healing wounds. I haven’t found any myrrh based products, so I’ll be stuffing stockings with Listerine and Bactine, along with a little note how those two products are the spiritual descendants of the rare spice given to baby Jesus two thousand years ago.

Despite their excellent gifting, I still have a beef with the magi: traveling for the holidays is tough, and traveling by camel only makes it tougher. That doesn’t seem very wise to me. Didn’t they have access to boats, or maybe a flying carpet?

However you celebrate this time of year, I hope you find joy and comfort in your community, or with your friends, or with family. May we all get through these darkest days of the year, and have a little more sunlight each day to warm our hearts.

Maybe You’d Like

If you want to try the Icelandic book giving approach this holiday season, here is a giveaway opportunity for the mystery lovers in your world:

eBook & Paperback Sweepstakes!

(2) Winners of eBook “Gift Baskets” of ALL ebooks

Other Winners of individual ebooks or paperbacks (randomly selected)

Next Picayune

Thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune! I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

All the best,

Mickey

P.S. For those of you who picked up a copy of Ashley Undone recently, nothing helps like reviewing the book. It can be anywhere you’re comfortable reviewing books, and here’s a link to the Amazon page where you can do that if you don’t know anything better. (Thanks in advance.)