The gift exchange came up empty

Much as I love Christmas — and I love it a lot — I can’t say I’m a fan of the Christmas gift exchange.

You know what I’m talking about.

A bunch of names are put in a hat, you pull out a name and you have to get that person a Christmas gift.

It may be a family group. It might be a bunch of folks who work together. It might even be a bowling team.

But the effect is the same.

Instead of searching for a meaningful gift for someone special, you find yourself shopping for something random for someone random, someone whose name has been pulled out of a hat.

And how much fun is that?

For a few years, that was tried by my parents’ generation for the Ronald cousins.

It’s safe to say I have no memory of any gift I gave or received during those few years. Much as I like my cousins, when you are 12 and draw the name of a cousin who is 3, the true spirit of Christmas is a bit hard to find.

For a couple of years, as the cousins grew older, there was an attempt to do one of those exchanges where gift recipients have the option of keeping the present or trading for one that somebody else received.

As you might expect, that did not go well.

Cousins who had received gifts they liked didn’t want to give them up to someone else. There were tears, as I recall, and that idea soon found itself put back in the closet with all the leftover boxes from the Ball Store and Wolf and Dessauer. Except that the boxes would be recycled for another Christmas, and the gift-swap idea was jettisoned forever.

My worst gift exchange experience, however, requires a confession on my part.

It came when I was working in surgery at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, performing my alternative service as a conscientious objector under the Selective Service System.

I had started my service at Methodist in October 1970, and I was still getting my bearings when the Christmas holiday approached.

Within the hospital hierarchy, I was just about the lowest of the low, making minimum wage, mopping floors in surgery and generally doing things you really don’t want to hear about.

From a Christmas standpoint, however, it wasn’t the work that mattered. What mattered is that I was perpetually broke.

So when the gift exchange drawing — enforced by the imperious head of nursing Ruth Webb — I was rattled.

I was even more rattled when I pulled out the slip of paper that bore the name of Dr. Wendell Edwards, chief of surgery.

So, what does a surgery attendant who pushed gurneys, moved things to the morgue and took orders from every other living human being in surgery get for the boss?

There was a vague suggestion of a price limit, but even that figure was going to be stretching it.

Could I buy Dr. Edwards a pair of sox? Yes, but that seemed a little cheesy, even if it was anonymous.

Gloves? Too expensive.

A book? Likewise.

And what the heck did I know about the recipient of the gift? I saw him in the hallways now and then, but hospitals have a clearly defined pecking order. And I was at the bottom of it.

On top of that, my meager resources needed to be spread over my other Christmas giving, gifts for people I knew and loved and cared about. They came first, not the person whose name was on a slip of paper pulled out of a hat.

So, I confess, in the end I panicked.

Dr. Wendell Edwards did not receive a Christmas gift from the fortunately anonymous surgery staff member who had drawn his name.

Did he mind? Were his feelings hurt by the oversight? I hope not.

All I know is that was 50 years ago, and I still feel bad about it.

Sorry, Dr. Edwards. I hope there was something under the tree that year that made my failure a little easier to take.