This year I don’t mind what gift you buy me, as long as it’s not bought from THEM

The very next day, you gave it away…

Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

“Oh don’t get me anything,” my Dad used to say in his gentle manner in the run-up to every Christmas.

You always knew he didn’t really mean it. But what did he mean? When I was a child, I imagined it was one of those adult-to-child euphemisms for “Please go away, I’m busy”, and so I’d buy him a book.

When I became a teenag…