the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Another thing I hate about christmas – and there are many – are handmade gifts.

Because unless the person who gave you the gift makes a living out of selling said item,  or is  a child aged under ten, they are nothing more than a hobbyist, and therefore the potential for it to be a bit rubbish increases. No matter how much they might say ‘I made it especially for you.’ it won’t dispel the feeling of being royally stitched up, if thinking ‘This is all very nice and everything. I can see the time and effort you’ve put into making this, whatever it is. But we do have shops that sell things’.

Of course my antipathy towards handmade presents is in no way related to my own experience some years ago. How could it be? I only got the constituent parts required to make the item – balls of wool to make the jumper – not the jumper itself mind but a promise it would be finished for next christmas. That was at least five years ago. I’ve lost count. The jumper has attained for me a mythical status, a bit like Petrocelli’s house.

‘Petrocelli’ was an American crime show many years ago. The relevance to the jumper is that our hero lived in a caravan in the desert and at the end of show, he would explain how he cracked the case whilst building his house, brick by brick. That we never saw him finish his house is the point here, it became as more of an intentional aspiration than an actual reality. Of course I’m aware that the chances of the jumper now ever becoming an actual reality have been greatly diminished by posting this, but as I wrote some moments ago, ‘it won’t dispel the feeling of being royally stitched up.’

Or not, in my unmade jumper’s case.