So during our trip last week I had a moment of Betty affinity on a topic that I had always considered a little silly. Whenever Rose Clarissa Daisy Slocombe Darling is visiting Holland, no matter how hard up she is, she purchases travel gifts for practically everyone she's ever sent a postcard to. Young brothers get something edible, mothers get an imitation (but pretty) Delft blue tea cup and saucer, maybe the beloved servant gets a scarf.I have always thought that these interludes were silly. Why does she HAVE to pick something up for everyone for a visit that lasted just days? Why spend anything at all when she's obviously on the brink of financial disaster? But she has to. It's as though the ritual of purchasing knick knacks is the price (like a quarantine fee) of re-entry into the country.
I am convinced that they have to be surrendered at the boarder crossing and that England has been tossing them into the sea to build up artificial breakers and sea walls--the worries of erosion to a small island nation being what they are.
Anyway, while I was away, I picked up trifles for my family. Mint chocolates for Mijnheer van Voorhees (he's really quite easy), a new sleeping mask for The Ya-ya (don't ask), plastic pirates for the 4-year-old and a little dancing robot for my oldest. The baby didn't get anything because he isn't old enough to care and what I was really doing was apologizing for abandoning such a stinker (yes he is) on the rest of them and leaving him to their tender mercies.
What do you pick up when you go on trips?
I never had the "Oh, look what I bought you while I was away," compulsion. But when I married Betty Ross, I discovered he actually missed me. (Brit Hub 1.0 might have missed me if he ever noticed I was gone -- lovely man, but sometimes a bit blind to reality.)
ReplyDeleteSo now I make sure I get him a little prezzie. Usually a tee shirt; he likes tee shirts.
I'm not too crazy about hauling a bunch of stuff around while I'm traveling, but I've been known to buy t-shirts for the kids more than once - but only if I've gone someplace cool(Tierra del Fuego comes to mind).
ReplyDeleteWhen Dr. van der Stevejinck and I went to D.C. two or three years ago, I mainly bought pencils and postcards(they don't take up any room, and I use them - we also bought a small bag of shredded money from the Mint - to use in place of Easter grass that year) I wrote down the name and author of several books that caught my eye in the various gift shops - then went home and ordered the ones I wanted off of Amazon(for much, MUCH less).
I believe the gift-from-abroad compulsion dates from a time when going abroad was a big deal for most people, and therefore something that needed to be shared. Thus the exhausting present shopping.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, you could actually find stuff abroad that couldn't be bought at home (now what with Pier One and such, not to mention that almost everything is made in China, there's a certain sameness to the international shopping experience).
I'm with Betty Debbie on size - gifts must be small and light. And as a compulsive book buyer who has shlepped way too many volumes through airports, I am totally awed by her Amazon strategy. Next time I am tempted to buy a hardcover book in England I'll order it from Book Depository (free shipping world wide from UK) instead.
Would that I could start this one, "My nursing friends in Ireland," but, while one of them is a compulsive present-giver, I wish instead to mention my artist friend in the British Midlands. He's pushing 60, so totting up my maths here I get him going on family vacations as a boy in... ummm... the 1960s? and maybe into the 70s? Anyway, he is psychologically scarred *to this day* by having been *required* by his parents, whilst on vacation in Torquay or wherever, to spend his small savings (birthday money, etc.) on gifts to take home to aunties and cousins, rather than on rides, fairings, sweeties and etc. for himself. To his mum and dad, vacation presents for random relatives were a clear-cut duty. English, middle-class, War/post-War (World, II) parents. Kinda, you know, Betty-ish era.
ReplyDeleteBetty van den Betsy
Sheesh. "My artist friend in the British Midlands..." is very nearly as good. Do you have a bottomless rucksack to pull these delightful stories out of--like Mary Poppins?
ReplyDeleteNice talking, Betty Keira, for a person who's posted *photos* of her vacation in ***HAWAI'I***. I wish I could pull that one out of my rucksack.
ReplyDelete-Betty van den Betsy
Used to bring my dad a bottle of scotch from the duty free before flying home, then you don't have to schlep.
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