Aunt Mary loves you. That is both a blessing and a problem, for Aunt Mary has, under her arm, the potential to bring demise to all that is sacred in your home. And it's partly your fault, for having a birthday. She dances through the doorway, smiling like an angel, places a paper-wrapped parcel on your kitchen table and looks at you like a Schnauzer that's pretty happy about the sausage you're cutting up. You stare at it, trying your best to pretend it's a cutting board and hoping a very localized tornado will make off with Mary and her parcel. Then come the words you hoped you'd never have to hear: “Open it! Happy Birthday!” She might as well have said “I will now cut off your arm”.  

It's exactly as bad as you'd thought. Four “lovely little sailboats”, all “nestled quaintly” on the shore of a quiet fishing village amidst the dying lights of the day. You can't decide whether to yawn or see if it makes a good Frisbee. Now what? Fabricated smiles are no problem, everybody learns those at two and a half, so you whip out your best one and smear it all over the situation. Then you wonder if that was the best thing to do; have you now condoned this atrocity? Have you opened a door that ought to be welded shut? But what about poor aunt Mary? How can you not love such kindness?, however misguided.
 

One of the challenges of being a human is receiving gifts you'd rather not get. It's time we faced this dilemma once and for all. There are far too many things in life that make us squirm. Let's get this one off the list.

There are many possible approaches to this situation. Here are a few to consider:

1) (I'll get this one out of the way pronto because it's the standard go-to, but I'm hoping we're ready for something more creative.) Accept the gift graciously but don't hang it up, knowing she's too polite to ever say anything.

  10) I've left this one for the end, simply because it's so bizarre:

It's okay that she didn't pick a painting you like, it's nice that she thought of you, there's no problem, she can take it back or give it to someone else or keep it herself. She doesn't have to buy you anything else, nothing has gone the slightest bit wrong and the whole thing is just fine. She cares about you, you care about her, its your birthday, she's expressed her love, you feel it, and it feels good. And after all that beauty, there's something to top it all off: a painting that is going to, sooner or later, end up in a home where it is loved.
Isn't it strange that letting everything be easy sometimes seems so difficult?
 

Now, for all you Mary's out there:

Most of the time, for most of the people, buying art for someone is about as risky as asking a Chinese cook to look after your puppy. Many people take their home decor very seriously; they might leave a wall empty for years, waiting for the perfect piece. If they haven't found the right artwork in all that time, what are the chances of you walking in with it? Of course not everyone is so particular about their environment, but even so, it's still a lot like someone showing up at your door with a new wardrobe and expecting you to wear it. It's not wrong to buy someone art, just risky. Strangely, there's a difference between what we want someone to like, and what they like.

Want to have all the fun of buying your friend a new piece of art, plus know they're going to love it? Take them to the gallery and let them pick out something. Now you've got a great gift, plus loads of fun finding it!

Thank God for all the Mary's in the world. Ten thousand Mary's buying questionable art for ten thousand friends is twenty million times better than nobody showing love at all. We've all done it: kissed someone who only wanted a hug, bought someone who just started a new diet a huge bag of cookies, congratulated a fat-tummied person on her non-existent new baby — there's a whole bunch worse a person can do than silly love-mistakes. So sit Mary down, kiss her wonderful forehead, look into her beautiful blue eyes, and ask her if she's ever been to Italy.

Jay Roma Lamb

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