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QUICKIE BOW TYING Skip the complicated looping and curling. Craft stylist Blake Ramsey Murray says a knot looks just as lovely. “With the tails trimmed at 45-degree angles, it can look really chic—and requires a lot less material. You don’t need any special skills to tie it. A basic knot with tails trimmed relatively short looks crisp and deliberate,” she says. “If they’re hanging over the edges of the package, they look sloppy.”
SHOW G R AT I T U D E E V E N FO R A G I F T YO U D O N ’ T L I K E
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RU D O L P H T H E R E D - N O S E D… CARIBOU?
It’s true: The European/Asian reindeer and the American caribou, once considered different species, are now known to be the same, says reindeer biologist Nicholas Tyler of the Arctic University of Norway. And, no, the “rein” part has nothing to do with Santa’s sleigh driving. The word reindeer comes from the Old Norse hreinin, which means “horned animal.”
“Whether or not you are ever going to wear the itchy cardigan your great-aunt knitted for you, be thankful for it— grateful people are happy people,” says Real Simple’s etiquette expert, Catherine Newman. As for expressing thanks, stick to what’s true. Not “I love it!” if you don’t, but “I can’t imagine how long you spent knitting this for me! I’m so lucky. Thank you.” It’s harder, maybe, with the microwave potatobaking gadget but still possible, says Newman: “You’re always thinking of ways to make my life easier. I love that so much.”
Same stockings, same cookies, same music playing as you open gifts. What’s the psychological reason behind rituals? “Back when families needed community for protection, traditions showed allegiance,” says Joffrey Suprina, Ph.D., the dean of the College of Counseling, Psychology and Social Sciences at Argosy University, in Sarasota, Florida. Another theory: Markers of time make the stress of the season more bearable. “The simple observance that we’ve made it once more around the calendar offers comfort,” says Marie Hartwell-Walker, a psychologist in Amherst, Massachusetts.
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U N C L E S A N D AU N T S don’t tell you to brush your teeth or sit up straight. Their love has few conditions. You just get the good parts. Like my Aunt Madeline making ravioli just because I love them. And my Uncle Mario, who took us up in his single-engine Cessna plane, with no hands on the wheel, to our squealing delight. (My mom and the FAA still know nothing.) Then there’s my Uncle Pat. When I was six years old, he made me the following offer: He would take me with my cousins to an amusement park in Queens if I would sleep over at their house on Long Island afterward. He had to work the next day, and it would be too late for him to drive me home. I promised with all my heart that I was a big girl, and I could do it. So I went to the fair, stuffed my face with cotton candy, rode the Ferris wheel, and got this tiny toy tin washing machine with a crank and a spin cycle. I came crashing down as we pulled into the driveway at 11 P.M. and, breaking my promise, cried to go home. Without a fuss, without scolding me as my parents would, Pat laughed and drove me home. Years later, when Uncle Pat and my Aunt Jean were living in Southern California and I was there for work, I had lunch with them, then drove two hours away to my hotel— leaving my cell phone behind. I called Uncle Pat with my FedEx number and asked him to send it, that I could wait a few days. The next morning, I woke up to a flashing light on the hotel-room phone: You have something at the front desk. The clerk handed me my phone and said that an older gentleman had dropped it off at 5 A.M. He didn’t even stay for breakfast. Two years ago, I called their house to say “Merry Christmas,” and my cousin Patti told me that her father was too sick to know what day it was. He passed the next day. Around Christmas every year, I miss him terribly but am incredibly thankful for his limitless love and support. Uncle Pat once gave me a cool pair of Mad Men–era binoculars, and I often sit on the dock with them in Marina del Rey, looking out at the boats, thinking of him, hoping to see myself without all the conditions, the way he saw and loved me. —MARGARET SEKELSKY MARGARET SEKELSKY IS A WRITER IN MARINA DEL REY, CALIFORNIA, AND AN EXPERT ON UNCLES AND AUNTS—SHE HAS 21 OF THEM.
