Okay, enough about the weather and deer hunting. Let’s change gears and consider that Christmas is fast approaching – just 19 more shopping days remain – and many minds are whirring as they try to figure out what to buy and give that special outdoors person on their list.
Unless the “giftee” has thrown out obvious hints (i. e. “I’d love a new Hummer in Realtree camouflage HD finish.”) the “gifter” is pretty much left to their own devices when perusing the outdoor departments or sporting goods stores. The true challenge is to avoid giving something the giftee already has, or doesn’t truly need or will use that often. And with today’s economy, the gifter needs to assure they get the most bang for their buck (I just had to sneak “something” in relating to deer hunting).
I guess we can all relate to receiving gifts that never saw the light of an outdoor day. Usually they were given by a non-outdoors person who had little or no knowledge about the lifestyles of avid outdoors people. Often, the gift idea came from a strategically worded and promoted ad seeking to unload a few warehouses full of whatever the stagnant product was. But to the inexperienced non-outdoors person, they seemed perfect for Uncle Joe, the avid sportsman. One of the all-time classics was a turkey hunting/attractor cover scent marketed by “Tink” Nathan, inventor of the “Tink’s 69” buck lure. It seemed like the perfect gift for the turkey hunter, right? Well, keep in mind that turkeys have almost a zero ability to smell. They identify everything by sight. As I recall, that product vanished rather quickly from the advertising roles, but still, many bottles were sold, probably purchased by well-meaning non-outdoors people as a gift to Uncle Joe, the turkey hunter.
I categorize gifts like these to those loud theme ties and hand-knit ill-fitting sweaters and hats that we’ve gotten from Aunt Nell or Grandma (my apologies to the knitters who actually are skilled in transforming yarn into correct sized garments). Those former ones go into the “it’s the thought that counts” gift category.
Some families go the “Christmas Wish Listî route, where each writes down some of the gifts they’d most like to get. That works in some cases, but can also be confusing when made out by an avid outdoors person and then read by an indoor-loving relative. Such obvious-to-us things as a box of .30-06 150-grain shells, an adjustable model grunt tube, a 6-weight-forward sink-tip fly line, a hammer extension for a Marlin Model 336, or a box of ballistic-tip .50-caliber sabots may read like a foreign language to others.
I’ve found the perfect solutions. First is to give that special outdoors person a gift certificate to the appropriate store that specializes in whatever activities they’re into. Next is to take their list to another outdoor person who will translate it into indoor-related language you may actually understand: “It’s rifle ammo, a deer call, fishing line, a doodad that fits on a lever-action rifle, and lastly, muzzleloader bullets.”
Of course, once knowing what these are, you being unfamiliar with where-to-buy these, may have to travel to a dozen different stores to find them. If you’re lucky, the clerk may actually sell you the correct item and not one that costs twice as much.
One also needs to keep in mind that avid outdoors people have a similar problem when buying gifts for indoor-based people on their list. Brand names mean nothing to us. Those weird colors also. We see in the basic color spectrum, so mauve, plum, avocado, aspen and other “hues” translate to purple, purple, green, and green. And then there are the women’s styles and sizes. To us there are dresses, pants, shirts, hats, and jackets, in small, medium, large, and extra large sizes. Ladies shoes? Forget it. We tend to think in terms of boots and maybe waders.
Electronics are always a big part of gift giving, but unless you know exactly what the recipient wants, beware. When Junior says he wants an external 1TB HD USB unit, you’d better go to a geek clerk before you buy. Recently the big screen HD TVs have been popular, but unless you have a lot of credit left or excess money in the bank, simply buy them a hanger to place one on the wall – that is, if they have a wall large and strong enough to accommodate one of those gigantic screens. Outdoors people usually are easier to satisfy. They’re more than happy with a GPS unit, new compass, or walkie-takies. Or if you really want to splurge, a digital trail camera or laser rangefinder.
I guess we outdoors people can all recall extra special Christmas gifts. For me, I’ve been fortunate enough to have had several. The first that comes to mid was the Daisy Red Ryder BB gun (and, no, I didn’t shoot my eye out), a dozen #1 Oneida Jump traps (I made some decent new school clothes money catching furbearers with those), a Sears J. C. Higgins .22 bolt-action rifle, a Remington Wingmaster 16-gauge shotgun (I supplemented our family larder with the game taken with those) and a Sears 8x10x7 wall tent (a buddy and I even camped out in the winter with that one). Yes, I’ve been fortunate enough to have received many other memorable gifts, but those earliest ones shaped me into the avid outdoorsman that I’ve been.
If you wonder why the ranks of avid outdoors people are shrinking in this country, and our kids are overweight, consider what most youths will probably get this Christmas – ipods, cell phones, new computer game software programs, and maybe laptop computers.
Maybe outdoors people can be tough to buy gifts for, but what we seek to get certainly helps keep our group healthy. So I guess it’s worth the effort to keep humoring us.