Present problems

I love Christmas. I love the lights and carols, all the adorable people bundled up in sweaters, the trees and the snuggling.\nBut presents, I'm not so good with.\nMy parents should've known I was gay when, as a boy, I always asked for food processors, sewing machines and Care Bears and was so disappointed with my toy trucks.\nBut I'll never forget the Christmas that ruined receiving gifts for me forever (and doomed me to become an English major). I was in the first grade, and I'd asked Grandma for a typewriter. She got me a manual one, whereas I'd been hoping for an electric Smith Corona.\nDisgusted, I hurled the machine across the room, yelling, "I don't want this damned typewriter!" Grandma immediately began to cry, and Dad spanked the hell out of me in front of the whole family. I apologized and accepted the typewriter, but I never got another Christmas present without feeling an immense amount of guilt and self-loathing.\nOnce I realized Christmas would never be the same, I began to focus on getting great gifts for other people, adopting the mantra of centuries of sexually frustrated lovers, "'Tis better to give than to receive."\nNow there are three kinds of Christmas gifts: the asked-for, the sentimental and the actually useful.\nIdeally, you give people what they ask for, but sadly, they never actually ask for anything. Either they don't know, or like my mother, they insist they've got everything they need.\nThat leaves the other two options. I'm a terrible judge of usefulness, and when it comes to the holidays, I'm a very sentimental person. (I cry during the opening credits of "It's a Wonderful Life.") Obviously, this leads to bad gifting decisions.\nFor instance, my ex used to cry whenever he heard "Unchained Melody." Assuming that meant the song touched him deeply, I bought him a music box that played it. He started crying as soon as he opened it and couldn't stop until the lid was closed. To watch him, you'd think I'd given him a box full of onions. Or dead puppies.\nThen there was the time I gave Mom Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique." I imagined it would liberate her from years of slavish adherence to conservative Christian gender roles, but of course, she never opened the book and is still mystified by femininity.\nKnowing my Dad worshipped Ronald Reagan, one year I bought him Edmund Morris' "Dutch," in large print so he wouldn't strain his eyes. But he didn't read it.\nUndaunted, I bought it for him again the next Christmas on audiocassettes, so all he had to do was hold still and listen. Even that proved too much, and after a brief rant about neither of my parents possessing an ounce of intellectual curiosity, I surrendered to reality: I couldn't pick a good gift to save my soul.\nThe truth is I can't give -- or take; I'm "presently" impotent. Still, I love the lights and carols, all the adorable people bundled up in sweaters, the trees and the snuggling. And I wouldn't trade Christmas for all the Easters in Christendom.\n(Dedicated to the memory of John Lennon, killed 25 years ago this Thursday.)