Gift-Giving: My Mom and Country Music

Many years ago, I heard some charming artists and enjoyed their music. The kind of music that made me want to dance! This was so long ago; remember what it was like? Those days when we had CD players and cell phones, but streaming music services were not popular yet.

I remember my mother began asking at Halloween for Christmas gift suggestions. Then on the big day, I recall everyone being so surprised and happy opening their gifts because they got exactly what they wanted. 

I felt it was my responsibility to make people happy with exactly the right gift.  Maybe it was acting on my subconscious training to please people.  Around gift-giving time, my thoughts also swirled into, “now I have to be MORE and BETTER at gift-giving! Handmade and/or expensive must be the way to go!” 

My mother had very strong opinions about many things, and the music you can dance to was one of them. She especially felt an aversion to country music and most music with drums and fiddles. Part of her makeup was also to be prim and proper, such as actually using the word “unmentionables,” correcting ain’t, or even correcting other’s subject-verb agreement. These details may paint a better picture of my mother and add to the humor of my story.

I was still learning about kindness in every interaction, as I found being more sarcastic and overwhelmed those days. I wish I had practiced questioning myself when feeling overwhelmed with duties and feeling guilty about all the to-do lists, including gift-giving and receiving.  I felt guilty if someone gave me a gift and I didn’t have one for them. No one has ever written a holiday song about those feelings!

Following one of those early morning calls asking for gift suggestions, my unkind while funny gift request went something like this:  I asked my mom to go to the store and ask a clerk for CDs that had the songs, Did I shave my legs for this?,  That Don’t Impress Me Much,  and Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under? She dutifully wrote down my gift request and asked me twice if that was what I really wanted. I was amused, thinking of her going to the store to ask for my un-proper song requests. 

In the end, I did get what I asked for, making my mom show her love in that way - a way that went against her strong opinions of prim & proper music. And when she gave me the gift I played the music for her. Really, it was quite funny and it’s a gift-giving memory I hold dear to my heart.

I’ve been doing some work on myself this week with taking responsibility for other people, with being more kind, and stopping myself from repeating things that I don’t want to believe. That’s a great gift for yourself, so reflect and release what you don’t want. You might have some “gifts” that are attached to survival. It is simple to let those go. Just ask for what you want.