When a recent 'Irish Times' gift guide offered Christmas present suggestions for 'grannies', some real grandmothers took offence. So ARMINTA WALLACEasked them what they really want
THE GRANNIES OF IRELAND are up in arms. Why? Well, this being the season of goodwill and gifts and general jolliness, 10 days ago this newspaper published a Christmas shopping guide that contained suggestions of suitable presents for various family members. Naturally enough, gifts for the granny loomed large on the Yuletide horizon.
Among the helpful suggestions were a teapot, a china cup and saucer, a doorstop and a coffret of toiletries. “Women of a certain vintage love a coffret,” advised the writer.
As a granny myself I’m in a position to confirm that if I got a doorstop for Christmas I’d clobber somebody with it. As for a china cup and saucer, hm, okay. Provided it’s Villeroy Boch and comes with another five cups and saucers in the company’s funky, cost-a-fortune wave-pattern series, with the bendy teaspoons nestling at the bottom of the box.
But it was the coffret that really got the grannies of Ireland gnashing their teeth. And angry birds have nothing on angry grannies. "The mind boggles," wrote grandmother-of-five Attracta Kennelly in a letter to The Irish Times.
“What is a coffret, anyway?” asks Laura O’Mara from Stillorgan, in Co Dublin, who also protested in writing. “Is it, like, bath salts and bubble bath and stuff?”
Rita Moore, who lives in Westport, Co Mayo, has two grandchildren, a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. “When I saw that list,” she says, “I thought, Oh, my goodness me: what planet do they think we live on?”
Her grandchildren have been very good to her over the years: she has no complaints. “I’m a great reader, so they often end up giving me books – biographies or detective fiction. And sometimes it’s jewellery, which is lovely.” Her husband, she adds, is a great man for surprises – which may or may not include some fancy lingerie.
Laura O'Mara has two grandchildren: Thomas, who is 16 months old; and Dara, who is just three days old. "I was a bit up to high doh when I wrote to the Times," she says, "because the baby was born by emergency C-section, so it has been all go here. But I did laugh when I read that article, and then that lady's letter, in the paper. I mean, 2011 grannies. Come on."
Being something of a new granny, is she enjoying the experience? “It’s wonderful. I’m going round here with a constant smile on my face.” Thankfully, baby Dara, despite the drama of his birth, is doing very well.
So what does a 2011 granny get for Christmas? “Last year I got an iPad,” she says. “And I love my iPad. But that was from my husband, and it was a one-off. I wouldn’t be into that league of presents at all. In fact in our family we do a Christkindl for €100 max – so we only buy one present each within the whole family, which is great.”
What's on her wanted list this year? "I love clothes. And I love little things that somebody puts a lot of thought into. I really love books – but not cookery books. I wouldn't mind a golf putter or a charm for my charm bracelet." And on her hate list? "Gloves," she says. "Or a scarf I wouldn't be terribly excited about. And I would hateto get an apron."
As for the notion of fine china, Isobel Morris notes that “very few grannies sit by the fire drinking tea. I have been a granny for 20 years, and I’d be a long way from being excited if I were given a teapot looking like a Christmas pudding. That’s the sort of tacky stuff we are trying to get rid of and nobody wants. We all have china cups. The children don’t want them. Nobody wants them.”
She suggests a Cath Kidston shopping bag might be more the ticket, for a 21st-century granny. Presents she has really enjoyed in the past include a calendar with a photo of her grandchildren in Canada on every month – “every day when I came down, those children were in the kitchen” – and a craft-fair bird box.
“It was painted orange with a slate roof. The weather was so bad last year that I didn’t get it up until March – but then the tits came and nested in it, and we had great fun watching them.”
Morris has an impressively long list of gift ideas, but she also has a sneaking sympathy for the writer of the offending article. “Grannies probably have the broadest age profile of any member of the family,” she says. “A granny can be anywhere from 50 to 100.”
Many grannies, especially those at the upper end of that scale, will tell you they don’t want any gifts at all. This is because, when you reach grandmotherhood, aka the age of spiritual wisdom, you realise, first, that Christmas is not about spending money but about spending time with the people you love and, second, that if you want something good, such as a top-notch laptop or a macro lens for your DSLR, you’re better off ordering it for yourself online when nobody’s looking.
That way you can smile, grit your teeth – always supposing, of course, that you have any – and say: "Thank you somuch for the gorgeous doorstop."
