It’s early December and a snowfall has begun. Our tiny world of privacy, like a crow’s nest atop a masthead, affords us a welcome overview of the now neglected and whitened fields spreading to the horizon and the grey-blue ruffled water of the Mississippi River seen blurred by the snow through the spiny branches of shoreline trees. Intermingled among these tranquil vista are wavering throngs of pointed shrubs and an open-sided relic shed sinking into the ground overtaken by the encroaching cattails.
Brilliantly on my part today I have directed my brother-in-law to a treasure from Aspinal of London. It is something I already own and which my darling sister has covetously mentioned a number of times at table when visiting them. There are times I have sensed a moderately chilling testamentary theme to the commercial ejaculations. Having risen above the callous element of these repeated allusions to the objet d’art – and naturally dismissing the undeniable reference to the impending destructive state of my affairs – it occurred to me to accelerate my sister’s conspicuous retail interests by referring her husband to what I have cleverly refashioned (in defence of my own tenable lack of seasonal generosity) a Christmas gift from him to her.
My partner and I, not being devoted to either anniversaries or public holidays (the celebration of which we cynically dismiss as irrelevant), haven’t a clue what if anything my in-laws do in consequence of the Christmas holiday. My late father for example regularly opined that “Every day is Christmas”. It may only have been an excuse for him to avoid giving gifts though personally I credit him with far more beneficence recalling as I do his custom of rolling up dollar bills and suspending them in ribbon on the Christmas tree with a name tag attached.
The sad detail of Christmas gifts is that, in spite of the effort my dear late mother spent thinking about and buying “that special gift” for each one of us, I cannot to this day readily recall anything my mother ever gave me other than one I returned (and that because the story surrounding it amuses me still). I similarly recall a gift from our cook Dinah when I was a child because I unhappily broke it. Otherwise I am bound to confess that materialism is predominantly a dubious ambition. Yes, I recollect the flaming plum pudding and the inexhaustible supply of tableware and plâteauxilluminated by the chandeliers and candelabra. And the toboggan. And lying under the Christmas tree, staring dreamily into the shiny bulbs and hanging ornaments.
But the philosophy of gratuity did not quell other ambitions today. Indeed only last evening I was reading about the advantage of routine. The anticipated peril of driving into the city today for example amidst the snowfall didn’t prove to be a real threat or misadventure. The snowploughs had obviously distributed salt upon the roadways and freeways. The driving amounted to squishing upon a shiny wet and black though dirty surface, one from which naturally every car which drove by succeeded to splatter me.
Bee Brooch from Aspinal of London
