The Joy of Getting

As I was ripping down Christmas lights and preparing to chuck the tree out with the trash I took a minute to consider what really makes Christmas so important.

For the first time ever I am no longer shacking up alone, eating cut-up hotdogs tossed right in the box of macaroni in cheese. I’ve moved in with my girlfriend and two cats in a lovely little apartment in Northern California and we were delighted to celebrate our first ever Christmas together. She’s catholic and I’m full-blown pagan so we decided to mix our mysticisms and dutifully celebrate all of the Holiday festivals we could come up with.

We lit candles for Hanukkah, ready poetry for Kwanzaa, strung up tinsel and drank eggnog for Christmas. We even batted around the idea of celebrating Ramadan and Diwali even though neither one of us knows the first thing about either holiday beyond that it falls somewhere in the vicinity of these other fests.

Our sorry financial situation, however, limited us to exchanging gifts only at Christmas even though I was planning on receiving my 8 days of Hanukah gifts along side my Christmas stash. I got my girlfriend all the pretty and practical things she had on her list, as is my responsibility as the live-in boyfriend, and she in return gifted me with each of the bicycle-related trinkets I desired.

Mates supplying their bicycling-obsessed mates with bicycle accoutrement is nothing new, but it can be damned difficult for people who don’t give as big a whoop as us about the Horst-link suspension and GT’s I-drive system, or why Magura brakes are so stylish. That’s why we as gift recipients must outline in very clear detail what it is we want and or need for our bikes.

My friend, Eric, in the city of Santa Cruz recently had his Santa Cruz Heckler lifted from his backyard where the bike was locked up to itself but not to anything solid – like a 300 lb body guard named Odd Job. I personally think it was some sort of city tax he forgot to pay and the trash company was just doing their job, but he insists it was thievery.

Eric, wanting to see his bike replaced and not with some half-rate Huffy, outlined on his wish list exactly where his girlfriend could find another Santa Cruz just like his last. He even arranged the discounts he was entitled to as a bike mechanic and more or less did every short of signing the check (that was his girlfriend’s job). Eric did exactly what was necessary to ensure a proper bicycle-nut Christmas of immense proportions.

Back in Arcata, California where I was celebrating my smorgasbord of Holidays I found my girlfriend was just as responsive to my wish list. I had on there more simple bicycle accessories. I needed a new pump with an air pressure gauge, some pant-leg fasteners to keep my jeans in one piece and, most importantly, I needed some new gloves.

But I didn’t just need any gloves. I needed gloves that would inspire me to get on my bike when the temperatures drop and the rain falls; gloves that were at the same time functional (i.e. with grippy-goo on the finer tips for control and padding on the wrists for comfort, that sort of thing) and stylish (not gaudy like so many motocross inspired gloves with hideous neon designs, à la early 1990s acid wash jeans meet Satan).

I trusted my girlfriend. She’s stylish and practical and, with my pragmatic description of the gloves I needed, was armed to battle the hordes of deranged customers Christmas shopping at our local sporting goods stores.

She triumphed. On the Wednesday after Christmas we tore in to our presents (after she returned from a whirlwind trip to SoCal visiting family). We figured if we were already dooming ourselves to eternal damnation by mixing so many holidays together we might as well throw all caution in to the wind and open presents a full four days late. And there, under our now decaying tree, in a delicately wrapped box adorned with bow, lay my new bike gloves. She had done well. She had done very well.

Brand new gloves are a beautiful thing. They are fresh. They hold their form. They don’t reek of our sweat and whatever it is we might land in when we take headers off the front of our bike while careening out of control through the Redwood Forest. And, most importantly, next to a brand new bike like Eric’s, they are the single best kick-in-the-pants for us to get our fat butts out there in the middle of Winter and avoid the spare tire and creaky knees of late Spring after taking three months off from riding.

My Specialized Deflect gloves – neoprene lining and handle-bar loving Body Geometry padding included – became in that instant like the proverbial carrot dangling in front of the mule’s face. I was on my bike minutes after opening the last present, which happened to be a pair of his and her matching pant-leg fasteners. It was a good Holiday celebration, even if we did confuse our neighbors with simultaneous menorah lighting, Christmas tree decorating and African drum circle.