Maggots. The gift that keeps on giving. From my mother-in-law.

My mother-in-law may not have realised it when she gave me maggots for Christmas, but they were just what I needed most in my life.

Maggots. Lots of them. All dead.

Just before I opened her present, she did warn me that it was ‘a bit odd’.

I had been expecting a bottle of wine.

This is my blog and so it’s my side of the story but I think if she could speak for herself, she might say, along with all of my in-laws, that I am a difficult person to buy for.

Maybe it’s true although I do try to be helpful about this. I drop hints. Like, how much I love books and CDs. Like how much I’d value a donation to charity in my name.

If I’m honest I’d do anything to avoid that toe-curling moment when I open a present that I truly don’t like and then feel incredibly self-conscious as I try to act as if I do.

It’s just like when someone tells you to act normal, and you can’t remember what your normal is.

Do I smile when I like things? Or do I jump up and down saying ‘oh boy, oh boy’? Or is it something else completely that I can’t at that moment remember? I know that when I’m in that situation I can’t even think straight enough to resolve to take notes next time I get something I like.

And, okay, I admit it, there have been times, bad times, when I’ve wanted people to know that I don’t like their presents. Or them. Which is mean and not the spirit of Christmas as well as a shockingly poor example to my children. Bad, bad, bad.

I mean, it’s the thought that counts, yes? So, when someone who shall be nameless but might have given me maggots this year, gave me anti-wrinkle cream a couple of years ago, the thought was, what? ‘Here’s some stuff for smoothing out your newspapers when the paperboy scrumbles them’? That was probably it, yes?

While this year it was what? ‘Here’s some things you’ll need when you’re older and deader.’

The funny thing is, I didn’t really mind. I thought it was indeed ‘odd’ but not really my problem. I’m being honest about this.

(To be fair, although it’s strictly against my nature, the maggots were intended as bird food, and came with bird feeders, for which my husband had asked his parents.)

And there are good explanations for the wonky gifts. The anti-wrinkle cream was because her wallet was nicked and all she could get was stuff from the chemist.

That makes sense, yes?

The maggots were an accident. She meant to give them to her son, my husband, but they got into the wrong package. The wriggly little dead things. You have to watch them. They get everywhere.

The good news is that my husband and I, after 15 years of wedded bumbling, finally sussed the whole presents-for-each-other thing. I bought him Robert MacFarlane’s The Old Ways which I can’t put down. Meanwhile he got me an impossibly complicated radio which can tune in 14,000 stations and has kept him happily occupied for the last two days.

If you’re wondering what I got for my mother-in-law, the answer is that I left it to my husband. He bought her some gardening tools, decorated with flowers, which she loved.

But back to me, opening my present from her. I  said nice things about the bird-feeders, which were for my husband. Then I got to the maggots.

I said, after a very short pause, ‘Maggots.’

She began to apologise.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘These are fantastic. I’ll dine out on them for weeks.’

It was just a few minutes later that I realised I could blog about the unwriggly ones too. Just what I most needed in my life.

 

 

‹ For children of all ages, something a bit more cheery and festive …

Milking the maggots ›

Tagged with: Christmas presents, home, lifestyle
Posted in Christmas, feedback, irony, life writing, women