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Winter 2023
General News
At Eastie, we have a little gift exchange on New Year’s. It’s close enough to Christmas that maybe we aren’t really fooling anybody, but just because something’s symbolic doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. And in terms of scheduling, I think it’s pretty convenient. It’s after the busy season for anyone who wants to celebrate the Solstice or Christmas stuff. Plus, the exchange is after dinner, so everyone has all day to wallow around hungover from their New Year’s Eve bacchanalias.
That said, I think that our gift exchange is a terrible idea and I only hope I live to see the day that it is destroyed.
I’m not generally all that opposed to a gift exchange. It’s at least better than a Secret Santa. As a compulsive liar, I love Santa. If you tell a random kid at your local Hy-Vee that the President of the United States is singing the Black Eyed Peas song coming through the loudspeakers, you will be “asked” to leave. But tell that same child that an omniscient old man is watching them to determine how many toys they deserve and the parents will breathe a sigh of relief that you haven’t undercut their cunning ruse. It’s beautiful.
But my love for the actual Santa aside, Secret Santa is a horrific custom. You have a few friends and those friends have friends and those friends have friends…and now you are in a group of twenty five people praying that you draw someone you know anything about. And of course you don’t! The odds aren’t in your favor. And now you’re just trying to get a nice enough gift that you don’t embarrass yourself.
In a gift exchange, you don’t have to give someone a candle that says, “I know nothing about you because you are only important to me as an appendage of my friend Gage.” You bring in that same candle, but now it says, “I don’t know which of you this candle is going to, but I’m sure you will enjoy my excellent nose-taste.” And then a month later, Stephen tells your husband how much they enjoyed the lavender scent and you can consider yourself a gifting master.
I think that if I had a gift exchange with people who didn’t already live and work together, I would have an excellent time (same goes for an orgy or a chili cook-off). But here at Eastie, things always get too personal. I know. It’s hard to imagine the Holiday season becoming a breaking point for interpersonal tension. But somehow we manage.
This year, the problem arose when everybody wanted these two wicker baskets shaped like ducks. The ducks were named Tucker and Scooter. And I know that because they had little name tags around their necks that--from across the room--kinda look like little bow-ties. If you’re thinking, “Well that’s silly, why would a duck be wearing a bow-tie?” Well the answer is simple; to match its little wicker vest! If Tuck and Scoot just wore vests and no tie, then they’d look silly.
I hope that I don’t sound too anti-duck. Because I’m not anti-duck. Tucker and Scooter were very cute. It’s not really my taste, but I understand that not everyone can be as classy as me. I’ve learned to live with it. I just don’t understand why these specific ducks would cause such a commotion. Especially when someone else brought a set of homemade herb butters! And I don’t mean homemade in the sense that I bought some butter and some herbs and then I mixed them together with a spoon. I started with fucking fresh local cream and churned it myself in the food processor. That’s a delicacy. That’s a culinary treat. How often do you even get fresh butter in the first place? Surely that’s worth fighting over! But no, put a damned name on a basket and everyone loses their minds!
I showed a draft of this article to my husband and he told me I might want to watch out. He said it was a little too obvious just how jealous I was; that I was clearly hurt people didn’t care more about my herb butters. Some of you might be thinking the same thing. So I will repeat to all of you what I told him, “Fuck you! I’m not jealous at all! I got my own wonderful butter back, so I’m the real winner! Rachel can enjoy her corny baskets and bland bread all the way to hell!”
Oh, spoiler alert. Rachel is going to end up with the baskets. Here’s what happened:
First, Kevin got the baskets. He didn’t know what he was opening. I think he just opened the largest box there (which is a rookie fucking mistake). I think that Kevin was glad when Monnie snagged the baskets. It meant that he could steal the insulated water bottle from Abbie.
But Monnie was furious when Thomas stole the baskets from her.
In Monnie’s defense, the gift exchange is pretty strongly weighted towards couples. And Thomas didn’t want those duck baskets. I’m not convinced that Thomas has ever wondered how best to display onions and garlic on his counter. But I’m sure that if he ever did, his solution would be something in the shape of a kaiju monster or something covered with the members of KISS. If Thomas was going to pick his own gift to steal, it would have been Derek’s KISS blanket (that I still think Thomas brought).
And do you want to know why I think that’s what he would have picked--removed the obligations and encumbrances of marriage? Because he said, “And I…(pause for dramatic effect)...am going to steal the KISS--” before Gregory went, “No no no no no no no no no. You want the baskets, remember. The baskets.”
After a quick little whisper battle, Thomas agreed that he wanted the baskets.
Monnie is a widow. As if the holidays weren’t already hard enough, she now has no one to try and steal back her cheesy duck baskets. She raised a fair point about everyone choosing for themselves and not turning into teams, but that point was soon moot. On the very next turn, Rachel stole the baskets from Gregory. (Technically Rachel stole the baskets from Thomas, but Gregory was the one who started crying.) This did, however, free up Thomas to steal the KISS blanket he wanted which freed up an ungrateful William to open my beautiful herb butter and then have the fucking gall to look disappointed.
Now, our gift exchange doesn’t have a ton of rules. You can either open a wrapped present or steal something that someone has already opened. If someone steals your gift, you can’t steal it back, but you can choose between stealing someone else’s gift and opening an unopened present. Once an object has been stolen three times, it is locked in and can’t be stolen anymore. So when Rachel stole the baskets, she was pretty confident that she had won the coveted prize. She was thrilled. She did a little dance. What holiday joy!
Then Wynne stole the baskets.
Normally, that wouldn’t be allowed. But this is Wynne’s first New Year’s at Eastie and we had forgotten to explain the rules to her. Rachel didn’t care. As far as she was concerned, the ducks were locked and Wynne's ignorance of the rules was her own problem.
Everyone else disagreed.
Frankly, Rachel’s dance hadn’t left a great taste in people’s mouths. I don’t want to waste time trying to describe a dance--the artform is so ethereal and fleeting that it seems silly to dilute it into words--but let's just say that this dance involved a lot of fake farting in the direction of people who wanted the baskets. In some parts of Nebraska, that might even be considered rude. Maybe it was a sense of inclusion, maybe it was the joy of seeing Rachel humbled after her touch-down dance, but everyone at the gift exchange agreed that we should let Wynne take the ducks as an expression of goodwill and holiday cheer.
But you saw my spoiler above. You know that Rachel ends up with the baskets. It’s a tragic story, really. Rachel refused “to acknowledge the legitimacy of you dumb dorks as any sort of rules committee.” She put the ducks in her cardigan and hugged them tight, daring anyone to take them from her.
Then she went broad.
And this is why I hate our gift exchange. Because of course she did! Someone always does! Every fucking year! She started picking fights with specific people in the room. So and so never does enough to welcome new folks. Someone else never brings nice enough gifts. Her view of the world seemed to be that everyone was always somehow never doing what they should.
One or two of the calmer heads in the room tried to cool things down. These types of fights can tear a community apart, you know? But sometimes fussbudgets are like lava; all you can do is run away. Given the opportunity for Rachel to show a kind and decent face, Rachel only ramped up her shit throwing; like a monkey on a caffeine high.
I won’t repeat the things she said. I love drama, but I am not messy. Sure, I was one of those “calmer heads” she was insulting. But the things she said aren’t true. And the way I see it, journalism is no place for lies.
While all of this rumpussing is rumping on, Rachel still has the baskets in her cardigan.
And then we heard a snap.
The room stood terrifyingly still.
Everyone was silent*.
Tucker’s accidental assassination was like a cup of hot coffee. Rachel sobered up immediately. She apologized and handed the duck remains to Wynne, who looked around as if to ask, “Is it too late to steal the KISS blanket instead?”
Once the wicker dust settled, Rachel took home her disfigured waterfowl and Wynne opened up a bottle of local vodka. Which, for me, sounds like a resounding win. I love a local culinary treat!
***
There is a song called “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” In the song, a true love offers the singer a series of livestock, laborers, and golden rings to celebrate the yule holiday. It is a boring song that celebrates feudalism and meaningless repetition--two things I hate. HATE! I bring it up only to say that every day for the next twelve days, someone brought Wynne a basket.
What I love so much about Eastie is that it is the kind of place where twelve different people will bring you a basket to apologize for their annoying friend. Do you need twelve baskets? No. Of course not. But it isn’t about owning more baskets than you have room for. It is about a community of people who want you to know that they care about you. And isn’t that more important than counter space?
I can only hope that the next time Wynne has nowhere to put something because every spare inch of her apartment is covered in wicker, she will know that she is loved.
But to circle back to my thesis, if the best case scenario for a gift exchange is that someone ends up with too many baskets, surely we can come up with a better way to spend New Year’s.
*Except for the Wham tune forging forever onward towards the next song on the playlist.
That said, I think that our gift exchange is a terrible idea and I only hope I live to see the day that it is destroyed.
I’m not generally all that opposed to a gift exchange. It’s at least better than a Secret Santa. As a compulsive liar, I love Santa. If you tell a random kid at your local Hy-Vee that the President of the United States is singing the Black Eyed Peas song coming through the loudspeakers, you will be “asked” to leave. But tell that same child that an omniscient old man is watching them to determine how many toys they deserve and the parents will breathe a sigh of relief that you haven’t undercut their cunning ruse. It’s beautiful.
But my love for the actual Santa aside, Secret Santa is a horrific custom. You have a few friends and those friends have friends and those friends have friends…and now you are in a group of twenty five people praying that you draw someone you know anything about. And of course you don’t! The odds aren’t in your favor. And now you’re just trying to get a nice enough gift that you don’t embarrass yourself.
In a gift exchange, you don’t have to give someone a candle that says, “I know nothing about you because you are only important to me as an appendage of my friend Gage.” You bring in that same candle, but now it says, “I don’t know which of you this candle is going to, but I’m sure you will enjoy my excellent nose-taste.” And then a month later, Stephen tells your husband how much they enjoyed the lavender scent and you can consider yourself a gifting master.
I think that if I had a gift exchange with people who didn’t already live and work together, I would have an excellent time (same goes for an orgy or a chili cook-off). But here at Eastie, things always get too personal. I know. It’s hard to imagine the Holiday season becoming a breaking point for interpersonal tension. But somehow we manage.
This year, the problem arose when everybody wanted these two wicker baskets shaped like ducks. The ducks were named Tucker and Scooter. And I know that because they had little name tags around their necks that--from across the room--kinda look like little bow-ties. If you’re thinking, “Well that’s silly, why would a duck be wearing a bow-tie?” Well the answer is simple; to match its little wicker vest! If Tuck and Scoot just wore vests and no tie, then they’d look silly.
I hope that I don’t sound too anti-duck. Because I’m not anti-duck. Tucker and Scooter were very cute. It’s not really my taste, but I understand that not everyone can be as classy as me. I’ve learned to live with it. I just don’t understand why these specific ducks would cause such a commotion. Especially when someone else brought a set of homemade herb butters! And I don’t mean homemade in the sense that I bought some butter and some herbs and then I mixed them together with a spoon. I started with fucking fresh local cream and churned it myself in the food processor. That’s a delicacy. That’s a culinary treat. How often do you even get fresh butter in the first place? Surely that’s worth fighting over! But no, put a damned name on a basket and everyone loses their minds!
I showed a draft of this article to my husband and he told me I might want to watch out. He said it was a little too obvious just how jealous I was; that I was clearly hurt people didn’t care more about my herb butters. Some of you might be thinking the same thing. So I will repeat to all of you what I told him, “Fuck you! I’m not jealous at all! I got my own wonderful butter back, so I’m the real winner! Rachel can enjoy her corny baskets and bland bread all the way to hell!”
Oh, spoiler alert. Rachel is going to end up with the baskets. Here’s what happened:
First, Kevin got the baskets. He didn’t know what he was opening. I think he just opened the largest box there (which is a rookie fucking mistake). I think that Kevin was glad when Monnie snagged the baskets. It meant that he could steal the insulated water bottle from Abbie.
But Monnie was furious when Thomas stole the baskets from her.
In Monnie’s defense, the gift exchange is pretty strongly weighted towards couples. And Thomas didn’t want those duck baskets. I’m not convinced that Thomas has ever wondered how best to display onions and garlic on his counter. But I’m sure that if he ever did, his solution would be something in the shape of a kaiju monster or something covered with the members of KISS. If Thomas was going to pick his own gift to steal, it would have been Derek’s KISS blanket (that I still think Thomas brought).
And do you want to know why I think that’s what he would have picked--removed the obligations and encumbrances of marriage? Because he said, “And I…(pause for dramatic effect)...am going to steal the KISS--” before Gregory went, “No no no no no no no no no. You want the baskets, remember. The baskets.”
After a quick little whisper battle, Thomas agreed that he wanted the baskets.
Monnie is a widow. As if the holidays weren’t already hard enough, she now has no one to try and steal back her cheesy duck baskets. She raised a fair point about everyone choosing for themselves and not turning into teams, but that point was soon moot. On the very next turn, Rachel stole the baskets from Gregory. (Technically Rachel stole the baskets from Thomas, but Gregory was the one who started crying.) This did, however, free up Thomas to steal the KISS blanket he wanted which freed up an ungrateful William to open my beautiful herb butter and then have the fucking gall to look disappointed.
Now, our gift exchange doesn’t have a ton of rules. You can either open a wrapped present or steal something that someone has already opened. If someone steals your gift, you can’t steal it back, but you can choose between stealing someone else’s gift and opening an unopened present. Once an object has been stolen three times, it is locked in and can’t be stolen anymore. So when Rachel stole the baskets, she was pretty confident that she had won the coveted prize. She was thrilled. She did a little dance. What holiday joy!
Then Wynne stole the baskets.
Normally, that wouldn’t be allowed. But this is Wynne’s first New Year’s at Eastie and we had forgotten to explain the rules to her. Rachel didn’t care. As far as she was concerned, the ducks were locked and Wynne's ignorance of the rules was her own problem.
Everyone else disagreed.
Frankly, Rachel’s dance hadn’t left a great taste in people’s mouths. I don’t want to waste time trying to describe a dance--the artform is so ethereal and fleeting that it seems silly to dilute it into words--but let's just say that this dance involved a lot of fake farting in the direction of people who wanted the baskets. In some parts of Nebraska, that might even be considered rude. Maybe it was a sense of inclusion, maybe it was the joy of seeing Rachel humbled after her touch-down dance, but everyone at the gift exchange agreed that we should let Wynne take the ducks as an expression of goodwill and holiday cheer.
But you saw my spoiler above. You know that Rachel ends up with the baskets. It’s a tragic story, really. Rachel refused “to acknowledge the legitimacy of you dumb dorks as any sort of rules committee.” She put the ducks in her cardigan and hugged them tight, daring anyone to take them from her.
Then she went broad.
And this is why I hate our gift exchange. Because of course she did! Someone always does! Every fucking year! She started picking fights with specific people in the room. So and so never does enough to welcome new folks. Someone else never brings nice enough gifts. Her view of the world seemed to be that everyone was always somehow never doing what they should.
One or two of the calmer heads in the room tried to cool things down. These types of fights can tear a community apart, you know? But sometimes fussbudgets are like lava; all you can do is run away. Given the opportunity for Rachel to show a kind and decent face, Rachel only ramped up her shit throwing; like a monkey on a caffeine high.
I won’t repeat the things she said. I love drama, but I am not messy. Sure, I was one of those “calmer heads” she was insulting. But the things she said aren’t true. And the way I see it, journalism is no place for lies.
While all of this rumpussing is rumping on, Rachel still has the baskets in her cardigan.
And then we heard a snap.
The room stood terrifyingly still.
Everyone was silent*.
Tucker’s accidental assassination was like a cup of hot coffee. Rachel sobered up immediately. She apologized and handed the duck remains to Wynne, who looked around as if to ask, “Is it too late to steal the KISS blanket instead?”
Once the wicker dust settled, Rachel took home her disfigured waterfowl and Wynne opened up a bottle of local vodka. Which, for me, sounds like a resounding win. I love a local culinary treat!
***
There is a song called “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” In the song, a true love offers the singer a series of livestock, laborers, and golden rings to celebrate the yule holiday. It is a boring song that celebrates feudalism and meaningless repetition--two things I hate. HATE! I bring it up only to say that every day for the next twelve days, someone brought Wynne a basket.
What I love so much about Eastie is that it is the kind of place where twelve different people will bring you a basket to apologize for their annoying friend. Do you need twelve baskets? No. Of course not. But it isn’t about owning more baskets than you have room for. It is about a community of people who want you to know that they care about you. And isn’t that more important than counter space?
I can only hope that the next time Wynne has nowhere to put something because every spare inch of her apartment is covered in wicker, she will know that she is loved.
But to circle back to my thesis, if the best case scenario for a gift exchange is that someone ends up with too many baskets, surely we can come up with a better way to spend New Year’s.
*Except for the Wham tune forging forever onward towards the next song on the playlist.
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