Posted by on December 20, 2019 7:00 am
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Categories: µ Newsjones

No Christmas present will ever come close to how excellent that little jack russell was – it taught me about love, and the value of a perfect gift

I remember when the magic of Christmas burst. I must have been eight or nine, and it was the year my parents gave me a plastic green sledge. It was huge – by far the biggest present under the tree. I didn’t have the foresight or inclination to furtively feel what it was through the paper, and I have no memory of what I was expecting. But when I unwrapped it, I immediately burst into tears, which I think we can all agree made me an ungrateful little brat. In my defence, Christmas Day that year was – like so many – wet and grey, and I had only one very vague memory of British snow, so the present of a sledge seemed to taunt me with that mythical white Christmas; a perfect day that I was already sure couldn’t exist.

Once my tears had dried, I decided that I would never invest hope in Christmas presents ever again. I went on to become a lousy present-buyer and only marginally better at receiving them. There was something about the layers of expectation that floored me. The fear, resentment and waste of giving something that was unwanted only worsened in adult life. No one needs to add to the world’s woes with a dashed gesture of love.

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