One of the things I love about Christmas is the once a year opportunity it represents to indulge my overriding passions: gluttony and greed. Yep. There are 2 tins of Quality Street chocolates on the very top shelf of the pantry and today is the day I shall devise my Christmas menu. But even more fun than that is the chance to overindulge in books.
Once a year I can enter a bookstore (virtual or bricks and mortar- I’m easy) and buy up big on the basis that I am purchasing gifts. Who am I kidding? Buying presents for loved ones is a complete disguising of the facts. I am there to buy books that I wish others would give me in the hope that the recipient will read it and “lend” it back to me when they are finished. Two books for the price of one. Yep, ladies and gentlemen, I am a Literary Indian Giver.
It starts with the catalogues. Pages and pages of books. I can’t help myself. I’m intrigued by the present- for- every- member- of- your- family marketing of it all. How can they cater for both eighty-year-old Great Uncle George who spends Christmas lunch drinking too much whiskey and dribbling onto his plate, your expectant sister-in-law or your cricket mad nephew.
Biographies, autobiographies and memoirs abound. I am fascinated by glossy hardbacks about some heroic twenty two year old cyclist who once rode their bike on a stretch of road that forms part of the Tour De France. What have they achieved, I wonder? Does this mean that they will be dead (literally or metaphorically) in the next year thus making it a life lived full?
Or what about the amount of ghost writing work generated by semi literate football stars, celebrity wannabees and grandfathers of rock? There is the latest crime novel, romance or 
page-turner from some mega author whose names appear on the Fortune 500 list and books are thick enough to be used as an interrogation tool in lieu of a telephone book.
“You vill talk!” The villainous interrogator breathes fumes of sauerkraut in your face, his hooked hand glinting in the single shard of light that cuts the darkness.
“Never!” You hiss, twisting your head and thus spinning around as you hang from your rope bound wrists.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Laughs the villaneous interrogator. He reaches out with his hook, opening the claw to clench your shirt and stop your spinning. “Ve haff ways.”
You watch him reach into the darkness. In his claw he holds a book, a very thick book. It’s not a hard back. It’s not a torture manual. You both know what this means. The 
author’s name glints in raised type that you instantly recognize as Bookman Old Style. The words send a shiver down your spine. “You bastard.”
“Ah yes.” Sneers the villainous interrogator. “I’ve always loved Danielle Steele.”
And once I enter a store I am intoxicated by the smell of new paper, giddy with choice. My arms strain under the teetering pile. I buy more than I need, more than I could possibly read in a year of summer holidays. I care not for the heaviness of my load. It ain’t heavy, it’s my books.
But home again, with a roll of wrapping paper and festive tape, my mood darkens and covetousness creeps up on me. I pick up each book in turn, running my fingers over the cover. A sharp thought punctures my brain. Is Auntie Cheryl even going to read Animal People or is she more Four Seasons With a Grumpy Goat? Will my uptight mother-in-law read anything into my giving her Room or Annabel or should I stick with something safe like the latest Number One Ladies Detective Agency? Whichever book I choose, I can’t help worrying that I might be wasting it.
I know. I’m a snob. Some people don’t want to be edified when they read; they simply want to be entertained. And just as not everyone appreciates or enjoys classical music, not everyone wants literature shoved down their throat either. In the end I wrap hastily, eyes squinting sideways as I send the book to meets its fate in the hands of a stranger, perhaps a dilettante but as likely not to be. What if the recipient hates the book or worse doesn’t even open it? Thinks so little of my choice that the book ends up at a charity booksale having never been read.
Perhaps I should insert a small slip of paper with Return to Sender details. That way, the book might find its way back to a home where it will be read, maybe loved and cherished, maybe not but a home nonetheless. And at this time of year, the season of giving, when some of us may think of that baby in the manger and the kindness of the innkeeper in allowing his parents shelter in a stable, there is something fitting in this sentiment, don’t you think?
A very merry Christmas to everyone out there in the ether who has taken the time to read my blog in this, my inaugural year. I shall leave you in peace to enjoy the festive season and the summer holidays for those of us Downunder. May Santa bring you a bounty of books so that you too can indulge your reading passion. I hope we catch up again in 2012!
meredithjaffe 