When last we left you, the team here at Pembina Valley Online was sharing the best and worst gifts that they've received.
Operations Manager Shelley Graham reminisced about her one-of-a-kind Cabbage Patch Kid that was made special by her mother’s thoughtfulness, Content Creator Zack Driedger shared how some unassuming mouse ears turned into trip of a lifetime, and Eagle 93.5 Morning Show Host Jayme Giesbrecht described a gift that haunted her dreams.
With the first leg of the journey completed, now it’s time to take the exploration a bit further with the other half of the team — here are the gift-receiving categories that will likely be relatable to those who celebrate Christmas and informative to those who do not.
The gifts we knew we'd get, for better or worse
Put simply, sometimes it’s good to know what one is getting for Christmas, and other times, it isn't. Just ask Ty Hildebrand (account manager and morning show host on Country 88), who lived out every child’s dream of discovering presents before the big day. It didn't turn out as well as children imagine.
“The worst experience I had getting a Christmas gift was the one year when my brother, all my cousins, and I got those scooters with the big tires,” he says. “I was snooping around trying to find the Christmas gift, and I found it.”
Instead of feeling the thrill of victory, in an ironic turn, the gift lost some of its appeal.
“I got scolded for that, and then when it actually came time to getting the scooters, I was crying the entire time. I didn't enjoy it at all,” he says. “It wasn’t a bad gift, it was just a bad Tyler, mostly.”
For both Andrew Harder (sales) and Kylee Bailey (news reporter), there's no need to sneak a peek before the 25th — they can always depend on a practical, but not altogether exciting gift under the tree. Socks.
“[I] appreciate all the gifts [I] get, but if I’m going to really think of something [that isn’t my favourite], . . . it's socks at a family gathering,” says Harder. “You just get those generic socks, but then you wear them [anyway].”
For Bailey, the problem is not receiving the socks year after year (she loves a colourful pair, after all), it’s the size.
“l actually have never received a terrible gift because everyone in my life is extremely thoughtful, but maybe it was socks that were too small for my feet,” she says. “I liked the pattern on the socks. They were beautiful, but they were just so small that I could only fit three toes inside.”
For Maria Martsch (account manager), her predictable gift every year of her childhood was a joy to receive. Although she found some surprises under the tree, her mother also gave her cash for a special purpose. She put it toward one of her favourite things.
“I would go get my own board games because she didn't know what board games I wanted,” she says. “I was obsessed with games.”
Martsch has continued the board game tradition with her nephews. She says that recently, she purchased her favourite game for them, Make It or Break It Extreme.
The gifts we didn’t know we wanted
Sometimes, the gifts that catch us completely off-guard are the ones that make their way into our hearts. This is the case for Jason Unruh (new business development) and Tim Friesen (account manager), for whom joke gifts ended up playing a more significant role than anticipated.
“My friends and I did a gag Secret Santa type thing where we just got each other ridiculous gifts. When I was probably 17 or 18, my friend got me oven mitts for Christmas,” says Unruh. “I never used them. I thought they were [silly]. I kept them in my closet for many years, and then when I got married, the first week living together, we ended up using them. And we still use them.”
Unruh adds that now, he’s thankful that he didn’t have to purchase a pair.
Friesen’s initially unserious gift also ended up making a long stay in his home.
“The worst Christmas gift I ever got was actually a bit of a prank,” he says. “[My friend and I] decided to do a bit of a MCC gift trade, so we had a $5 limit. We each went to our respective MCCs from different towns, and he got me a bamboo picture frame with cats sitting in teapots, drinking coffee.”
It was love (the offbeat kind) at first sight.
“I kid you not, that picture frame sat in my bathroom for more than a year. I loved it so much because of how horrendous it was,” says Friesen. “It was the worst Christmas gift that turned out to be the best.”
Related stories:
- Barbacoa, pozole, ensalada de manzana: Do you know in which country these traditional holiday dishes originate?
- Four fun and tasty holiday recipes from the Pembina Valley
The gifts we knew we didn’t want (at first)
Have you ever received a gift that you didn’t care for at first, but then came to love? For Henry Sawatzky, senior account manager, this appreciation began with an obscure musician — a young German superstar named Heintje (say that five times fast).
“[I was] a child and expecting toys, for the most part, and I received an LP, like a long play record, which would have been okay, but the artist was Heintje,” he says. “He’s a German boy that was a singing sensation, so to speak, back in the day. It was a Christmas album.”
For Sawatzky, while an LP from a young German boy was unexpected, he says over time, he actually enjoyed the album.
“Originally, I didn't really care for it. I didn't ever tell my mom that. However, I did appreciate it later on,” he says. “It was a great Christmas album.”
Something similar happened to Robyn Wiebe (reporter) concerning a coveted Air Supply cassette when she was a teenager.
“[I] started listening to music on the radio. I really wanted an Air Supply cassette. That's all I wanted, and that was the only gift that would make me smile, so when I saw that cassette-shaped gift-wrapped present under the tree for me, I was so excited,” she says. “When I opened it and saw that it was a Keith Green cassette, I was super disappointed, to say the least.”
Wiebe notes, just like Sawatzky, after the initial shock, she came to appreciate Keith Green. Of course, her love for Air Supply grew right along side it, even without the cassette on Christmas morning.
Now, the gifts above (with their “LP” and “cassette”) could just as easily be put into a category along the lines of “the gifts that date us a little bit.”
Chris Sumner, content director, could also place his most memorable gifts into this would-be category.
“When my younger brother and I were just little kids, I remember the Christmas morning we came downstairs and found a Nintendo Entertainment System under the tree,” he says. “That was a big deal at the time. The NES, as it was called, was all the rage, and everyone wanted to play Super Mario Brothers.”
A few years later, another gift came along that one could consider as defining a generation. It was bright, built for speed, and every Canadian child’s dream.
“I received [a] GT Snow Racer,” says Sumner. “It was the nineties — neon colors were the name of the game. It had neon pink skis and a neon green seat and front steering wheel. Even in the middle of a blizzard at night, you could see me coming down the hill at Eastview Lodge in Neepawa.”
The gifts that mean the most
As the PVOL team considered all the gifts it has received over the years, the general sentiment is that even though some of the gifts may not have hit the mark exactly, they are always an artifact of something more. Usually, it's a connection with close ones. For Connie Bailey, content director, one of the forms this takes is in letters.
“Sometimes my kids write notes to me and my children are just the best at expressing themselves on a piece of paper. I think every one of my kids has done that at one point or another and that is always the most meaningful thing to me,” she says. “If I can get in a room with my entire family, that is my favourite part of life, and those notes . . . are the most special thing. I keep every single one of them.”
All the gifts mentioned throughout this exploration are different expressions of this same idea. Socks, even too small, can be an attempt to keep a loved one warm, purchasing gag gifts for friends is a means of sharing joy, an album that at first seems unpleasant can grow into a nostalgic reminder of who bought it, and having the latest toys under the tree suggests forethought and care in Christmas preparations.
It’s all meaningful, and it’s never really as much about the physical gift as the act of care and connection.
While it is, of course, a common wish for everyone to experience this special quality of the season, it must be acknowledged that it is a difficult time for many, as well. Chris Sumner’s holiday wish for the community sums it up:
“Many of us hold this time of year closely to our hearts and for a wide variety of reasons. Warmth, joy, and kindness fill the air, and I hope you've been fortunate to experience it like my family has,” he says. “I also recognize this is a difficult time for some families, also for many different reasons. My hope, and perhaps the hope that's woven through this season, is that you can find the support and comfort you need within the caring and loving communities we call home.”
As you open your own best and worst gifts this year, as it was for the team at PVOL, may their significance outweigh any other feature of them, good or bad. Unless it’s a blinding neon pink and green GT Racer — not much can outshine that colour palette.