Who is a gift for?

by Giselle Renarde

My grandmother came to Canada in the 1930s. Her family was beyond poor, often relying on a downtown soup kitchen for meals. I remember her telling me that if it hadn't been for a box of gifts distributed by the local newspaper to children living in poverty, she and her siblings wouldn't have received anything for Christmas.

Fast-forward to the 1980s, when my cousins and siblings and I were coming up. My grandparents were working class people living on a budget, but you would not believe how many gifts my grandma gave us at Christmas. Little things, but tons of little things. Cheap plastic toys and clothing from the clearance rack at her local discount store. We're not talking one or two items (or three or four)--we're talking garbage bags full of stuff.

I don't remember how I felt about the sheer quantity of gifts I received from my grandmother. When I was a kid things like storage space were not a concern. But the reason she gave us so much is clear to me now: she was compensating for the poverty of her own childhood by spoiling her grandchildren.

Fast-forward again to the present day. My grandmother died in the 1990s, but her memory lives on--most notably because my mom and my sisters refer to my girlfriend as "Grandma R" behind her back. It's something they snicker about. They snicker, I groan. It's easy enough to laugh when you're not the one whose girlfriend gives you gifts you don't want.

I live in a 1-bedroom apartment. I'm not a fan of "stuff." And yet from our very first Christmas as a couple, my girlfriend has been giving me an abundance of junk for Christmas. And when I say "junk" I'm talking about bags of random shit from the dollar store.

The thing is, my girlfriend LOVES Christmas. She is a Christmas fanatic. I won't even go to her house between November 1st and the end of January because it's so overly decorated (Christmas stuff EVERYWHERE--including on the floor) that I can't breathe. It's overwhelming.

Just like the gifts. The gifts are overwhelming. It's too much cheap crap, too much stuff I have no use for. And I'm too environmentally-minded to throw it in the garbage, which means it's now my job to figure out which charitable organization accepts donations of stupid crap.

Last week we were talking about gratitude here at The Grip. This is the opposite of that. And I'm sure I sound like a snotty ungrateful child, but this is my eighth year trying to communicate to the most important person in my life that I really would prefer it if she didn't buy me presents. I'll tell you right now, this conversation never goes well. I try to communicate that I would prefer we did experiential gifts, like a special meal or a getaway. DO something instead of giving things.

Every time I broach this subject, a hissy fit ensues. "Fine! If that's what you want, fine!" And then she inserts passive-aggressive little jabs into conversations again and again. She wants to give me gifts. She derives joy from the act of shopping for me and giving those things to me and watching me open presents.

But what if I don't want them?

A more gracious person would accept them and smile and say, "Thank you! How did you know? It's just what I've always wanted." But I don't believe in lying to an intimate partner.

Last year my girlfriend handed me my gifts and said, "Here's more crap you're just going to throw in the garbage."

So why give it to me?

Who is a gift for? If I've said please please please do not buy me anything and you do the opposite, who benefits? Not me, that's for damn sure. If my girlfriend enjoys buying me gifts so much that she will go against my wishes year after year to give them to me, isn't she doing that for HER, not for ME?

Is a gift for the receiver, or is a gift for the giver?

All I know is Christmas was a hell of a lot easier when I was a kid.

What Other Skills?

The theme of this fortnight is "other skills" and, well, I have to admit I'm kind of reaching here.  I guess I have some skills, like your standard skills, because I'm good at my day-job, I'm a good listener, I'm a decent cook, I generally rock at Dr. Mario and Yoshi's Story on the original Nintendo, but... like... do I really have skills so good they're worth dedicating a whole blog post about?  I dunno.

It's not that I'm being defeatist or self-deprecating.  I think it's me recognizing where my strengths lie.  And, I believe, my main strength is in writing.  I don't just write erotica under the name Cameron D. James -- I actually have multiple pen names and I write more than one genre.

Last year, I wrote almost 370,000 words.  That's about the equivalent of four full-length novels.  And I really wasn't taking writing too seriously until the late summer.  (Until the summer, I had only my one pen name, this one, and in the summer I expanded to two, and later in the year I picked up a couple more.)  So, most of those 370,000 happened in the latter half of 2015.

Am I perfect?  No, of course not.  Like any writer, I look back at some of my older stuff and I cringe. Sometimes with something I'm working on right now, I just can't get the story right, I can't get it to have the right tone or the right feel or whatever.  But it's a skill, it's not a gift.  If it were a gift, it would be effortless and it would be perfect.  Skills need to be honed and improved, they need to be exercised and expressed.  Writing is a skill of mine -- I'm constantly striving to do better and I'm continually working on doing more and more of it.

So, do I have other skills?  Not any worth really sharing here, but since that is the topic for this fortnight... Let's say another skills is an ability to learn.  I love taking on a new challenge and trying to figure it out and then get better at it.  Really, the ability to learn helps me hone other skills, like my writing.

I was able to go from completely clueless about self-publishing a few years ago to being a sort-of expert at it.  I've had a couple other authors turn to me for help when faced with a self-publishing challenge -- and it was always something that just took a few moments of my time.  My ability to learn allows me to try new adventures.  I'm currently learning the violin.  It's not going well. However, I'm willing to learn, to be patient, to ride out the scratchy weeks until I can get a solid note. I know a lot of adult learners of music give up pretty quickly because we put such pressure on ourselves as adults to learn something right away.  Learning is a process, it's not instantaneous.

Anyway, yeah, I guess writing is my main skill.  None of the others are really worth writing home about.  Unless you're a fan of Dr. Mario.  I kick ass at Dr. Mario.



Cameron D. James is a writer of gay erotica and M/M erotic romance; his latest release is Seduced by My Best Friend’s Dad (co-written with Sandra Claire). He lives in Canada, is always crushing on Starbucks baristas, and has two rescue cats. To learn more about Cameron, visit http://www.camerondjames.com.