Magazine Subscriptions: Not a “Proper” Present?
So Christmas has come and gone and once again, like a lot of other ladies I am the fortunate recipient of enough toiletries to see me well into next December. I don’t really mind this, but what does sort of rankle is the fact that exactly the same thing will happen with my upcoming birthday – yes, I’m one of those jolly January folk, you can tell who we are a mile away from our highly fragrant personas, because for our birthdays we also get toiletries – twice as many of them as they were of course half price in the sales, sigh!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ungrateful: generally I’m quite genial about getting the same presents all the time, except for the occasion when my birthday bounty took the form of a basket of smellies that someone else had received for Christmas – such was their enthusiasm for off-loading the thing that they forgot to remove the original gift label, either that or I do genuinely resemble ‘Nan’!
No, I’ll tell you what ungrateful is ... I overheard a conversation recently, where one seriously ungrateful beast was be-moaning the fact that for her last couple of birthdays she had been receiving magazine subscriptions for favourite magazines from a nearest and dearest, and felt that this “isn’t a proper present because I would probably be buying them for myself anyway!” Now to me, that not only smacks of ingratitude for a very reasonable gift, but also thumbs its nose at the thought put into it. Being regular purchases anyway shows that (a) it’s of interest to her, and therefore a very relevant present, (b) it’s saving her money that she can now spend on something else or save with glee, whilst in the thoughtful stakes it shows that someone is thinking about her as a person and trying to encourage her interests, as well as saving her the hassle of trolleying off to the shops, she only has to pick them up from the doormat! In terms of propriety, surely magazine subscriptions are more of a proper present than say tampons or trainer tamers!
By contrast, a friend of mine who has recently become very housebound burst into tears once she found out that we, as a group of friends, had bought her magazine subscriptions of two of her favourite publications, because she sees the gift as a life-line to the outside world, bringing it straight to her door and as a continuation of the life that she had prior to becoming ill, a life that she hopes to get back to some day. Put her with her beloved magazine subscriptions and me with my complete top-to-toe range of toiletries for twelve months in the same room as the ungrateful beast and I think we could lay the ‘proper present’ question to rest!