Different people and occupations were represented and, as I turned the carousel to examine the firefighters, dog catchers and nurses, my gaze settled on one that was in the shape of a little bald clergyman wearing a clerical collar.Daniel Fishel/The Globe and Mail
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The excitement of starting my first year at University of Toronto's Victoria College with its parties and new friends had given way to intense work, and before I knew it Christmas was approaching.
I fell into a blue funk because I was one of those poor souls who ended up with the short end of the exam stick, having to write several of them right at the end of the schedule.
It was depressing enough to have to continue studying so close to the holidays, but to add tinsel-festooned insult to injury, I had to watch everyone else triumphantly finish and head for home.
Near the end I was rattling around Margaret Addison Hall like some creaky old Dickensian ghost, moaning pitifully and eating myself into a chocolate stupor.
A trip to Hart House to hear the choir's Christmas concert did little to help, as they sang several arrangements I'd sung myself in my beloved choir in Niagara, and they made me terribly homesick. I sat alone in the back row with tears running down my face, breaking my heart over In the Bleak Midwinter and longing for my family.
As much as I loved university and living in Toronto, I was tired of working, tired of pompous Victorian literature, and fed up with trying to be somewhat grown up. I wanted my mom to make me rhubarb pie and my dad to play cards and watch hockey with me, something the girls on the fifth floor didn't do. I wanted to sit in my old bedroom and be a kid again for a few weeks.
Before I went home, though, I had to deal with Christmas presents. I had about $20 per family member to spend from my meagre student budget. Brothers were easy – a trip to the U of T bookstore for crested T-shirts. Done. My mom likes jewellery. A new necklace from Eaton's. Done. But what about my dad?
My father is a jovial and well-respected United Church minister who writes hilarious, story-filled sermons and has dedicated his life to the spiritual. He doesn't need things. He doesn't like things.
When I asked him what he wanted, he said "a hug." Oh, big help, Dad. Come on, really, what do you want? He thought about it. "Old Spice?" Dad, I refuse to buy you something as commonplace as aftershave. He thought some more. "Maybe an umbrella," he said. "I'm always losing my umbrella at church functions." Well, I'm certainly not getting you that, I remember saying. I'm going to get you something really cool and unusual.
So there I was, cursing myself, because as I stood in Simpsons with my last 20 bucks on the day I was to hop on the Grey Coach back to the Falls, I could find nothing cool or unusual: just your average Kringly Krap. No amount of decor or piped-in Christmas carols was going to make all that junk seem the least bit enticing.
As the clock ticked down, I gave up. He'll just be glad to see me, I thought, recalling the tears in his eyes as he'd dropped me off at the residence in the fall. I'll buy him a boring old umbrella, and we will just hang out together and I'll play the piano and sing for him. It will have to do.
With resignation, I headed to the accessories department, picked out a cheap brolly and was standing grumpily in line at the cash register when a display of imported English umbrellas caught my eye. The handles were wooden and spherical, and upon closer inspection I discovered that each was painted as a particular human character.
Different people and occupations were represented and, as I turned the carousel to examine the firefighters, dog catchers and nurses, my gaze settled on one that was in the shape of a little bald clergyman wearing a clerical collar.
My dad is a little bald clergyman who wears a clerical collar.
The price tag said $19.99. I had $19.99.
I couldn't believe it. I couldn't have been happier if someone had given me $1,000. I snatched it up, plunked down my last bit of cash and ran to the Bay Street bus station. I threw myself breathlessly into one of the last seats on the bus, and giggled merrily to myself all the way home.
The look of delight on my father's face when he opened my present couldn't have been greater than that on my own.
"Why, imagine that!" he exclaimed. "A parson umbrella. I guess everyone will know which one is mine now, won't they?"
He had the most wonderful time showing it to everyone at church, and no one picked up his umbrella by accident again.
I wish I could say that my dad still has the umbrella, but alas, on a family trip to England, he left it on a bus. Dad felt terrible, and I felt awful that he felt terrible. Simpsons, now the Bay, never carried them again and many years later Google searches have not yielded a replacement.
But I have come to realize the umbrella itself is of little import. The moment of finding and giving the perfect gift is more valuable than the gift itself, and more enduring.
And, as my minister father taught me through many a sermon, it gave me a great story – which is better than any Thing.
Maribeth Graham lives in Port Credit, Ont.