This year Rob gave me a British flag vest, and perhaps to offset it, a plastic Kaiser Wilhelm helmet. In his haul he got a pretty cool flashlight and a bottle of "handmade" Texas vodka.
We always go to a local pub to open our loot, because there's nothing like wearing a funny hat around strangers.
So that officially ends the Christmas season for another year, but I dug up a column I wrote about it way back in 1999 (you can see it has become a long-standing tradition).
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| Rob and I flashing the Secret Santa Gang Sign |
A Sharp Gift
I find it difficult to think about Christmas
until after the first day of December. Even though the Halloween stuff barely
made it off the shelves before being muscled aside by the plastic Santas and
rubber reindeers, I refuse to let the department stores dictate the beginning
of the holiday season.
If they had their way, we’d have one long holiday
season beginning on January 1st and ending New Years’ Eve. Eventually, we’d all
spend our entire lives in greeting card stores, and still never find one we
liked.
But now that December is finally here, I don’t
mind hearing Christmas carols blaring out of store speakers. In fact, I’m
starting to feel downright Christmassy.
And in the spirit of Christmas, I want to pass
along to the ladies the secret of buying gifts for the men in your life.
It never ceases to amaze me how much soul
searching women go through looking for the perfect present for the men in their
lives. They try to find an after-shave that is manly yet smells good – like “Pizza”
by Ralph Lauren. They worry about whether he’ll wear a green shirt, or if a ratchet
set is actually something a man would really use.
I’m here to tell you that there are only two
presents you can guarantee a man will like - flashlights and pocket knives.
It must be genetically programmed into us. I’ve
never met a man who doesn’t think a flashlight or pocket knife isn’t a great
gift.
When I was best man at my friend Rene’s wedding,
his present to me to remember the tender feelings of that special day was a
great boot knife. That was fifteen years ago and I still throw the knife in my
bag when I head to the cottage.
My friend Rob and I exchange presents every year
at what has become known as the “Boys' Christmas”. We give each other all the
stupid stuff no one else ever
would. So we wrap up miniature bottles of booze, plastic army men and Star Trek
tattoos. And every year, we each give the other a pocket knife.
Do we ever look at it and say: “But I already have
a pocket knife”? We always say: “Great, another knife!” and proceed to see if
it will cut through a beer can.
Dad was one of the most un-knife like people you’d
ever meet. Even so, every Christmas
my father always had a tiny Swiss Army knife handy to help cut pesky tape and
ribbons.
I don’t know what primitive urge attracts us to
knives, but trust me, we never get tired of them. And nothing says love more
than giving a man a knife.
For anyone who’s at all squeamish about giving
things with sharp edges as presents, you’ll be happy to know that men also love
flashlights. The flashlight gene is right next to the pocket knife gene in men.
Maybe it comes from reading under the covers as
kids. Or being sure that something in the closet is just waiting for you to nod
off.
Whatever it is, most men never grow out of their
love affair with flashlights – everything from those tiny key chain beams to
the monster 12-battery police torches Most men have at least a half dozen by the
side of the bed.
And don’t go all Freudian on me, about how knives
and flashlights are just a symbol to compensate for male physical insecurity If
you’re using that thing to cut string or light up a room, you have serious problems.
So if you have a man who’s difficult to buy for, look no further than a store that sells knives and flashlights. That is if you can get past the crowd of men outside with their noses pressed up against the window.
© 1999 Stephen Lautens
