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(originally printed in Encore Magazine 12/29/87)
Tyner T. Herculon
Rt. 4, Box 58
West Big Wally, Oklahoma
80432
Dear Aunt Tyner,
Thank you so much for the blazer. How did you know that I was so fond of the Capote plaid? And that 7inch monogram... no one will ever forget my initials again! I would be wearing the blazer even as I pen these lines but might have to get up and check on something in the kitchen, and don't want to mar that fabric by getting too close to the gas range.
The shoes are equally appreciated. They're a little large, but no one will notice if I stuff the Sunday comics in them to fill up the extra space, since the patterns match so closely. Smart choice!
I cannot express the delight I felt when I unwrapped the green tie on which you kind embroidered the names of all my childhood pets. . .
The above is the sort of letter which many of us with relatives in small, isolated communities have to tactfully write at this time of year. The gifts arrive early addressed to childhood nicknames like "Trey," "Princess," and "Little Pete." They're bulky, they reek of Aunt Zimma's rice powder and bombazine, and one can tell by their feel while putting them under the tree that they contain articles of clothing which are inappropriate for all civilized occasions.
It isn't that you lack affection or respect for the relatives who give you these things; it's just that, well, you wish they wouldn't try to buy you clothes. I mean, you love them, and you even spend vacation time and money going to look at them every couple of years, and they taught you valuable things when you were growing up, but you just can't seem to convince them that you live on the East Coast in the late eighties.
Every year, you try. When they ask for your sizes in midAugust (for the eleventyfifteenth time), you tell them that you REALLY DON'T NEED ANY CLOTHES FOR CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR, but in late November, there's one of those little yellow delivery attempt notices from the Post Office in your mailbox when you come home from work. You go to the Post Office, where the whole staff has seen your package and is waiting to see this "Little Pete" guy, and, as they futilely attempt to suppress their chuckling, they hand this package over the counter to you.
Noticing with a groan that it's been mailed directly from West Big Wally Wahoo Wearables, you tuck it under your arm and retreat to your car, knowing that the whole Post Office staff is pointing at you and laughing. You think about the year you decided to go ahead and wear that outfit from Uncle Ephraim, and how one careless cigarette smoker at a party nearly made you go up in "zap bomb" flames like a bread wrapper. You think, too, about the year you sent an honest letter to your family after Christmas, telling them
that there were simply no clothes for sale in their hometown that you could get any use out of and that you couldn't even return their gifts in southeastern North Carolina because no stores here stock any apparel that's 110% synthetic, and how they cried and raised hell and tried to blame Cousin Aylett's incipient alcoholism on you until you repented of your snobbish Yankee ways and sent them all apologies.
You take the package home and try to lose it in the back of a closet, because your tree won't go up for several weeks, and you start thinking about your own Christmas shopping, which you haven't started yet. Glancing at that closet with dread and about a pint of cooking sherry which you had to break into as soon as you got home with that damn package, you realize that your Christmas spirits have waned considerably.
Most of us are, at this point, considering several different courses of action. We consider seeking revenge by doing all of our shopping at that mall in FayetteNam where every store sells paintings of Elvis done on black velvet and framed in the dark, but just like in the cartoons, there's always an angel on the other shoulder. We debate with ourselves the option of going out and searching long and hard for gifts that those relatives would love, but give up in frustration when we try to think of a shipper who handles livestock. We end up putting off shopping until the last minute and then glean from the barren shelves whatever shiny things look like they've been there the longest rationalizing that our relatives are simply behind the times and that whatever looks most outdated will probably be most appropriate.
A few minutes after consigning our gifts to the Post Office, we start to realize that gift-giving, even to relatives in West Big Wally, is always a two-way street. It might be unpaved, full of potholes and lined with painted plaster saints and ceramic garden elves, but it's a two-way street -- If your relatives lack the opportunities and clear understanding to shop for you in West Big Waly, then you have just as much trouble shopping for them. You become resigned to the situation and your holiday spirits start to rise again.
... Until you open those packages and have to write those letters again ... "Dear Aunt Tyner"
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