Here Comes Treble: Where Have All The Gift Soaps Gone?
...Scented soaps and bottles of bubble-bath, doyleys, picture-frames, figurines, a candle in a half ostrich-shell, decorated with African beadwork...
Isabel Bradley focuses on the sensitive subject of unwanted gifts.
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As a school secretary, I received a startling variety of gifts each year, many of them beautiful, an equal number in poor taste or not to my liking. After exclaiming delightedly at, perhaps, the twentieth bauble received one December, I carried it home and placed it gently in the cardboard box hidden in the bottom of my cupboard. It was filled with an odd assortment of useless gifts: keeping every serving-dish led to kitchen cupboards overflowing with porcelain-crashing results; no-one could use the number of scented soaps and bottles of bubble-bath that lay there. Doyleys, picture-frames and figurines received in such vast quantities would have furnished an entire museum of Victoriana. All extraneous items were added to the box.
At the home of friends in England, a miniature wooden motorbike, lovingly carved in every detail was ostentatiously positioned at the fire-place. Our friend explained that this nick-knack had to be displayed until the bestower had seen that it was appreciated, after which it would be relegated to the attic. Upstairs in our bedroom, I suppressed a chuckle on seeing a candle in a half ostrich-shell, decorated with African beadwork; we’d given it to our friends for their wedding. No doubt that too would join the growing pile of unwanted gifts in the attic.
Another friend, Jean, recently helped her godmother, a lady in her nineties, clear out her gift drawer. “On top was the French perfume her great-grandson brought back from Paris, still in its gift-wrapping,” said Jean. “I tried to persuade her to unwrap it for display on her dressing-table during his next visit, but she wasn’t interested! Most of the soaps and bath-oils went into a box for the church bazaar. Then I found two hand-stitched handkerchiefs of delicate cotton, with exquisite lace borders. Pinned to them was a note in my own round, teenager’s handwriting: ‘To My Favourite Auntie, with love from Jean’! I made them for my godmother nearly sixty years ago! Well, I’ve got them back now!” Jean smiled ruefully, thinking of the hours spent in careful needlework. She continued, “Most of the items in the drawer were still wrapped, with the gift-tags on them.”
Most people spend not only money, but time, care and love when selecting gifts. Naturally, errors are sometimes made. Such mistakes end up in drawers and boxes, hidden, until a gift is needed when we forget to shop before a birthday party. At such times it’s useful to have a box in which to delve. Invariably we find the perfect perfumed candle to place in a lovely gift-bag – saved from a recent birthday party, of course – and prettied up with a bow and a personal note. Inevitably, from time to time, we have re-wrapped a carefully-chosen picture frame or set of handkerchiefs and given it back to the person who chose it for us a year or two ago. It may be a good idea to turn out those drawers full of scented secrets, those shelves packed with unwanted bibelots and to label each item with the name of the contributor before offence is given along with a gift!
Thank you to all who have added scented soaps to my invaluable Gift Box!
Until next week: “here comes Treble!”
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