Blessed by a Christmas Angel

So, last night ‚when I took the dog out for a walk, I was sur­prised to see a bas­ket on our front porch, I put it inside, and when we got back, Tiffany and I inves­ti­gated it. It is a very nice bas­ket, prob­a­bly a Longaberger bas­ket, with choco­late, a (white) Stan­dard Poo­dle orna­ment, a reg­u­lar Christ­mas tree orna­ment, some choco­late, a red Christmas-y hand towel, and a match­box car.

Oh, and a piece of paper. Let me pub­lish some excerpts:

Some­one in the neigh­bor­hood is send­ing you Hol­i­day Cheer. In this bag are good­ies sent espe­cially for you. Along with your spe­cial good­ies, you will find a Christ­mas Angel 2005 pic­ture. Please hang this Angel in your front win­dow to show that your house has been “Blessed by an Angel.”

and

In the bag you will find some extra fliers and Angels to use when prepar­ing your Hol­i­day Goodie Bag. Please make up a spe­cial small bag with good­ies for the neigh­bor that you are going to Bless.

and

As soon as pos­si­ble, when your neigh­bor won’t see you, place the Spe­cial Angel Bag, along with extra Angel sup­plies, on their doorstep so that they can pass along Hol­i­day Cheer to some­one else in the neigh­bor­hood. They too have now been BLESSED BY A CHRISTMAS ANGEL.

Now. My imme­di­ate reac­tion was: how nice, how sweet, but how dare they? After some thought, I have decided that my reac­tion is just: what were they thinking?

I mean, really. When you do some­thing sweet and mean­ing­ful like this, you NEED to ask peo­ple if they WANT to par­tic­i­pate before you FORCE them to do it. Now, some per­fect stranger, con­ve­niently made anony­mous by the rules of this chain let­ter, is forc­ing us to go peer at our neighbor’s houses to see who has been “Blessed” and who has not, then go buy the equiv­a­lent of stock­ing presents for them, “mean­ing­ful” presents, then make color copies of the Angel Sup­plies because we have only one Angel in our kit, the one we are sup­posed to hang so this doesn’t hap­pen to us again.

Oh, and don’t for­get a bas­ket. Then we have to creep out and, this is the worst part in my opin­ion, we have to inflict this on some­one else.

I don’t want to. I appre­ci­ate the sen­ti­ment, but not the idea that a) Oh, every­one will want to do this, Bill! and b) Nobody could be offended by the Bless­ing of an Angel! and c) It is no bother at all when you are pass­ing along Hol­i­day Cheer!

But what are my options? We can’t re-gift it. The match­box car and the poo­dle make that clear. And besides, then I’m pass­ing this on, and that’s what most offends me about it. We can’t just ignore it, because our anony­mous donor will hate us, I think. I have thought to put the bas­ket back out on the porch, promi­nently, with $40.00 and a note say­ing, “Thank you for your effort and sen­ti­ment, but we do not wish to take part in this year’s Bless­ing. We are all full up on Bless­ings. Please take our appre­ci­a­tion, and this money, and Bless some­one else. And our poo­dle is black, not white.”

They should really have asked. What I really want to do is add a note to the Christ­mas Angel 2005 Pic­ture that says, “Next year, please send us the Opt-out Angel 2006 pic­ture” and copy it and plas­ter it around the neigh­bor­hood at some point in the evening “when your neigh­bor won’t see you.”

I should note that Tiffany prob­a­bly feels much as I do, but is a nicer, bet­ter per­son with a healthy sense of guilt/community/holiday-spirit, and so we may end up doing this.

Either way, I’m keep­ing the angel for next year, so I can pre-empt a 2006 Blessing.