With Christmas Day ten days away, dancing sugar plums have not filled Etiquetteer’s head, but the way gifts are chosen has.
Unfortunately, some choose to give gifts in a spirit of malice. And no, Etiquetteer is not thinking about the traditional lump of coal left for bad children. As you know, Etiquetteer adores Miss Manners, the brilliant Judith Martin. Having first read her Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Manners some 25 years ago, Etiquetteer is still haunted by the story of the mother-in-law who gave her vegetarian daughter-in-law a fur coat for Christmas — and then got angry when the daughter-in-law bested her by selling it and sending the proceeds to an animal rights organization. Well, really . . . what could she expect? It’s better not to give a gift at all if you can’t do so in the spirit of pleasing the giver.
The late Gertrude Lawrence* chose a happier, more whimsical path when picking out a gift for her husband’s sister Barbara. The family dynamic was tricky with the Aldriches. Barbara’s family looked down on Barbara and her husband Hamilton because of her previous divorce, Hamilton’s perpetually failing business ventures, her own career as a writer, and their chronic lack of funds. “Perhaps to atone for this [attitude],” wrote Richard Aldrich**, “Gertrude’s gifts to Barbara were always beautiful, costly, and impractical.” One year she sent them an ornamental orange tree for Christmas, six feet tall. “There it stood: beautiful, exotic, and incredible.” When a more conservative relative huffily suggested a check would have been better under the circumstances, Barbara shot back “You don’t know what that tree does for me. What hunger it feeds. But Gertrude knows. She understands because she has really hungered — not only for food, but for a touch of brightness and beauty, without which life can be so drab and empty.” Etiquetteer calls that a well-chosen gift.
Gertrude Lawrence, impishly deciding what to send you for Christmas.
Finally, there is the homemade gift designed for laughter and prompted by love. One Christmas long ago Dear Mother found a Christmas card with a Bible verse she found charming. Being talented with scissors, she snipped out the two faces and inserted photos of herself and Dear Father in their places, as a gift for him. It is quite possible he didn’t stop laughing for five minutes after he opened that envelope — who wouldn’t love a response like that? The card became an ornament every year for the Christmas tree, and Dear Father’s reaction to it one of the happiest Christmas memories.
Etiquetteer wishes you joy, and of course Perfect Propriety, as you conclude your own holiday shopping. Take a look at the gift guide if you need some ideas, and please do drop a line if you’re still stumped, or have other concerns about Holiday Perfect Propriety.
*A sadly neglected legend of 20th-century theatre. When she is recalled at all now, Gertrude Lawrence is remembered as the star of The King and I and as both inspiration and co-star of Noel Coward’s Private Lives. An actress of rare star quality, Agnes De Mille once said of her “Can’t sing, can’t dance, can’t act, but who cares?”
**Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A, by Richard Stoddard Aldrich.