Not Burning the Candle

‘Yankee Candle’ might as well change its name to ‘What to Get Your Mother When You Have Absolutely No Clue’. It is the easy go to gift for all mothers across the world when no other gift can be imagined. When hours of searching yields no other likely candidates it is easy to simply throw up your hands, proclaiming “Screw it. I’ll just get mom a scented candle.” You go in, put your sniffer to a few random wax cylinders before finding one which seems good enough – probably one that smells like baking cookies. Of course, you don’t want to appear cheap to your own mother so you buy the large jar of a candle, even though you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the candle wick will never burn to within three inches of the glass bottom. There’s a good chance the candle will never be even lit. The wick will in all likelihood maintain its pristine uncharred whiteness. My mother has a closet filled four deep with various cookie scented candles which shall never see the light of day.

This year, I vowed not to stoop to the scented candle gift for my mother. This year I swore upon my mother’s life that my mother’s gift would be good, a gift she would actually like, a gift she might – God forbid – actually use. Now, I had no idea what this mystery wonder gift would be. I really have no idea what to ever get my mother for Christmas: Hence the overwhelming amount of scented novelty candles. My father is of little to no use. It’s all he can do to think of a gift for her himself. Usually my mother has to blatantly tell my father what to get her. I do not like asking people myself what they want. I have this fantasy image of myself as a master gift giver who sees through all pretensions and finds THE gift which even you do not know you want. This is a completely unrealistic picture of myself – unless, of course, you really secretly want scented candles.

So, I embarked upon my journey at the usual starting point: the mall. After leaving work at my own location within the mall, I entered the bizarre holiday battleground of the mall proper. This is a strange land of haggard shoppers, screaming children, emo-goth posers, and – at least on this night – dogs. There were dogs everywhere. I guess it was get your dog’s picture taken with Santa night which is a annoying and bizarre in its own right without actually having dogs running wild through the mall. Undeterred I went about my journey. I made my way quickly through the mall discounting handfuls of stores with nary a glance: Foot Locker, game store, Spencer’s, Hot Topic, Piercing Pagoda. They all failed to meet the high standards I have for my mother.

I browsed through stores, looking for that one thing which would announce itself as the perfect motherly gift. No, everywhere I looked I found gifts which just weren’t right. I don’t buy clothes for people because I hate trying to guess at sizes – an easy way to offend any woman. I also hate all the strange, tacky ‘gift’ kiosks which pop up every holiday season. I have no idea who wants or feels they need a floating hologram dolphin in a crystal, but I hope I never meet that person. There is also a kiosk where you can put any photo you want on a T-Shirt. The example is a picture of a 80’s vintage Firebird. This was obviously made by a man who knew what his Firebird looked like, knew what a T-shirt looked like, but could not rest until he knew what his Firebird looked like ON a T-shirt. None of these would do for my mother. The caricature booth on the other hand…

I searched on. I found nothing. Nothing. But all the while ‘Yankee Candle’ stood in all its stately splendor. It cooed to me in sweet melodious temptings: “Come, James. Your mother loves us. It’s so easy. You’ll be done in mere minutes. We smell like cookies. Cookies…”

It took a great feat of will to avoid even entering that vile trap of lame gifts. I refused to even look at it. I moved on. Finally, I found a gift from where I started. At Boscov’s department store, my place of employment, I found one of those chair vibrating massage things. Massage equipment is the second most overdone mother gift. Somewhere in my parents home resides a foot massager and a neck massager gathering dust behind a metric ton of scented candles. Still, this is different. It will massage her entire back. It has 10 motors. 10 of them. That’s intense. This is a great present. I swear. It is. Isn’t it.

Shalom