WHEN'S A GIFT REALLY A GIFT...?

The season again of gift-giving. The question is when is a gift a gift, not simply a habit or obligation? I find myself thinking this as I'm elbowed in and out of lines begging the attention of disinterested cashiers...!

I've spent enough time in those lines to write a novella. At least to conjure up 4 different categories of Christmastime gifts:

* There are always the ones you feel obliged to get for someone in a position of authority in your life. You know, boss...important customer....cleric....teacher... Congressional representative (ahh, scratch that last one). By their very nature, these gifts are perfunctory gestures of respect and/or sucking up. Fruit baskets are easily the gift of choice. For added panache, the ones that tuck in a few nuts and chocolates!

* Moving up the scale are the gifts you want to get. For the ones you love. Mate...parent...sibling...favorite relative...close friend. Can't be perfunctory here. These gifts actually invoke your best customised feelings for the person. I emphasize feelings, for gifts at their very best are not so much functional as they are loving. What will the loved one truly cherish about what you give them? Perhaps my most cherishable gift was to my Mother when in third grade I won a 1936 white & red double-boiler. Functional...? I thought so. But cherishable...? She used it in her kitchen to the day she died, and now it's in my wife's kitchen!

* Moving up the scale still higher are the gifts you can't wait to give the children. I mean, after all, is not the sweetest joy of the season the joy you reap from the eyes and giggles of the little ones? Ever since say about college, I've had this dichotomy in my life -- savoring the merits of adulthood vs missing the magic of childhood. I've stumbled into the conclusion kids have the better of the deal. So giving them a gift that will most enthrall them most enthralls me (well, unless they come with the dreaded warning "some assembly required)!

* Finally -- first, actually -- is the gift of self at this time of year. Macy's and Nordstrom's be damned, where this whole notion of gift-giving originally began was in a stable in a no-nothing town we think was called Bethlehem. The gift of God Himself to his planet. And perhaps to many other planets as well. Now if you believe the story, it is surely the most extraordinarily mind-bending gift of all...!

Now if you don't believe it, that's OK too. Only you're sorta missing the whole point to this season in the first place. And that's no gift!