The Perfect Gift
By: Julia E Hubbel
Tags: Life, Love, Friendship, Gifts, Christmas

The Perfect Gift

On nailing it, or not.

The photo showed my buddy Sonja, she of the perfect face and skin, wearing The Perfect Gift. She was grinning ear-to-ear.

Nailed it. Fist pump.

It was an early Christmas gift, largely because we are both so very busy, and I am getting ready to leave not only for two more big trips but then, the state entirely.

The gift was a Mongolian cashmere tee, cap sleeve, unbelievably soft, perfect size, very light beige ( a Sonja fave color).

Cost me maybe twenty bucks.

But that wasn’t the point. The value was in the Search.

I was at the State Department Store in downtown Ulaan Bataar, looking around on the top floor where the best gifts reside. Mongolia has cornered part of the market on cashmere. I had spent four days herding cashmere goats, so I was able to see the business up close and personal.

Bags of raw cashmere in my host’s home Julia Hubbel

At my first homestay, huge bags of the stuff were stacked against the wall in hopes of better prices. The market had fallen, which hurt the folks who were my hosts.

Still, certainly some was being woven into pieces.

One of the most best aspects of international travel is finding the perfect thing for a dear friend. For those I love, and given that my love language is gifts, finding That One Thing that nails it has become an art form.

Photo by Ashim D’Silva on Unsplash

I have known Sonja for more than thirty years. We’ve shopped together. She lived in my downstairs bedroom for two years. I know this woman, her tastes, her favorite colors, and what appeals to her.

It delights me no end when I pick up that One Thing.

I had combed for hours. Then the rack. This piece was a one-off.

It was so light that it will work for summer. Four season. Useful. Versatile. Works on its own or layered.

Sonja and I have long loved fashion. She continues, while I have lately slid into fashion disrepair for the simple fact that I am moving. And traveling. That doesn’t mean I go stupid overnight; only that right now, Lycra and Goretex rule.

Travel has allowed me to stock the spice cabinets of my friends who cook with Madagascar vanilla, pepper from Laos and Cambodia, and an array of chilis from all over the world. And coffee. Oh, my the coffee.

Photo by Nadia Valko on Unsplash

A trip to Spain turned up very creative jewelry.

You get it. I have to carry an extra bag just for the gifts, which are selected with all the care with which you might pick out a wedding dress.

I love nailing it.

My friends give me scarves. This is something of a challenge for me because not only do I not wear them, but I am hard-pressed to sort out what to do with an eight-foot-long bright red scarf with silvery threads it it, which is not only unwieldy but dangerous (especially on horseback). I re-gift most of them.

I have yet to re-gift a scarf back to the original giver.

But I’ll bet I will. I have a few crammed into my gift cabinet right now.

I used to take six months to pick a gift for the ex. On one occasion, I spent untold hours tracking down just the right size, color and quality leather briefcase for his big 17" Mac. He liked it, it was perfect. Then he gave it to his brother.

On another, I tracked down a simply fabulous leather aviator jacket, which he put on immediately, grinned, preened at himself in the mirror, and expressed that he “had always wanted one.”

He never wore it for me. Then he left it hanging in my basement closet when he dumped me the last time. Price tag for both of those: $1000.

He gave me a card for Christmas. Once. Never called, in ten years. Twice he gave me all-day sessions at a spa up in Evergreen. I fucking HATE to be touched by strangers. I told him that after the first time. Somehow he managed to give me exactly the same thing again later.

It would be at least partially true to state that the way this particular person ignored my birthdays entirely, never called on Christmas and managed to either never give me anything (to be fair, I only asked him for his time, which he also couldn’t manage to give) spoke to the rank disregard with which he handled that which I handed him with considerable warmth and care.

I confess to having gone from disappointment to anger to outright confusion to anger again, once I saw how my hard work had been treated. In no way was it about getting a reciprocal gift. It might have been kinder if he had burned those things so that I had no idea what had happened to them. Somehow it hurt more to know how callously all that effort had been treated.

He said to me last year, in a rare moment of relative kindness, that “at least you put some real thought into my gifts.”

Yah. Okay.

That also nailed it for me.

I love nailing it. For me, gifts are a way to express how carefully I watch, how much I notice about how someone lives, and what they care about. You have to be pretty other-focused to be able to do this well.

I do it very well. It’s an art form.

Sometimes, the greatest gift I can give someone is time. I will wash dishes, walk a dog, do chores, help around the house. Those things buy a few precious hours for a family matriarch. That’s priceless. And it also speaks to an understanding about what really matters.

Sonja, who is ever the most gracious person in my life, has given me a slew of things that still hide in a bottom drawer in my bedroom. They are what she can afford. What has always mattered far more to me was the pleasure I saw in her face when she unveiled The Perfect Gift.

People have no clue what to give me. Truth, I don’t want stuff, especially these days. I’d just have to pack one more box. The older we get the less stuff we want. Past sixty it seems that the women in my life care a lot more about the things that really, really matter. Time, hugs, conversation, coffee, small things that speak to a time investment.

For me, what would nail it is love. The hardest thing to give, the hardest thing to receive. As a result, the best. Gift. Ever.