Regifting

I hate sewing. I know that for some people it is relaxing, but for me it is a huge stressor. I hate it so much, that I decided to sew Christmas gifts for work associates this year.

No, I don't think there's a correlation between my hatred of sewing and my feelings towards my coworkers. It just seemd like an easy present to make. It was, I didn't hate doing it, and everyone was impressed with it.

I made microwavable sacks -- the kind that you can buy in the mall for $20. You microwave it for a couple of minutes and the herby smell coupled with the moist heat from the grains is supposed to relax sore muscles, etc. Mine were made by filling flannel tubes I made with rice and some good smelling sachet stuff. And I used different material for different people -- a manly-man hunting-fishing pattern for the men, cutesy snowflakes for the women, and then some generic lavender and blue ones for .... well, there's not another gender, but just to use generically as gifts as needed.

The women were all thrilled with their gift. The upper boss was perplexed when I gave it to him, but probalby because he's not used to us underlings giving him gifts, and he was busy plus on the phone. I'm sure it was just a perplexing moment for me to be giving it to him.

My immediate supervisor, who is just weird towards me anyway, was especially weird about this. He's just on the upswing of a bad cold, so when I gave him his manly-man rice sock and told him what it was and how to use it, I suggested that he could start using it now for his cold. He said it would make his wife happy and he was just going to regift it to her and put it in her stocking.

He's so subtle, this guy. I offered to give him a blue one instead which offer he immediately accepted. Well, I reasoned, at least he's honest about what he's going to do with it.

When I got back from lunch, there was a card and package on my desk from him. This is a vast improvement over last year when I got nothing from him, and the year before he gave me somthing anonymously, so I could never really properly thank him for it.

This year, I was pleased to receive a $10 Coldstone gift certificate. That was in the card. Intrigued that there could be even more than that, I opened the package with some trepidation. It was a box of hazlenut biscotti.

I don't drink coffee, which he knows. I don't like biscotti, and I don't like hazlenut flavoring.

My new mission is to now find someone to whom I can regift his gift. Then we'll be even. And isn't that what the holidays are all about? We give so that we can receive so that we can regift.