Front Porch: Giving perfect gifts takes care, insight

I just love it when people think of innovative or spot-on perfect gifts to get for people they care about. It’s hard to accomplish, but when you get it right, it’s a gem that everyone – in addition to the recipient – can appreciate.

I learned of two such perfect gifts this past holiday season.

One was given for Christmas to my friend Pam by her daughter-in-law Jen. Pam is known among her friends and family for being all-in when it comes to hamburgers – regular burgers from regular places, not those gourmet, piled-high ones that grace the covers of foodie magazines. Also, she and her husband like to get out to some of the smaller towns around Spokane, just to see what’s there, or sometimes, as in the case of Reardan, to visit something specific (the Inland Northwest Rail Museum).

So, Jen spent time in her car this fall driving from one burger joint to another to get a group of gift certificates for her mother-in-law. The list includes Paul Bunyan and Roger’s Ice Cream and Burgers in Coeur d’Alene, Edna’s Drive-In in Davenport, the Steer Inn out on North Division Street, Dean’s Drive-In in Reardan, the Viking in Sprague, and Ron’s Drive-In, Thrifty Scotsman and Mike’s Burger Royal in Spokane Valley.

She put them all in a folder, with a cover sheet: The 2020 Burger Review Challenge. Inside she included a chart with spaces where Pam could rate each burger by quality of ingredients, scale of 1 to 10: bun, meat, veggies, cheese, fries and overall impression. A total score will then be entered.

I told Pam I want to learn what her personal winner is and how long it takes to do the entire burger survey. But no matter the outcome, the real winner here is Jen for creating the perfect gift.

And the other gift-of-the-season, as far as I’m concerned, was given to a young girl I know – Kennedy, age 10 – by her grandmother Christa. It’s a guillotine.

A bit of background might be in order here.

Kennedy’s mother Erin grew up in Spokane and earned a bachelor’s degree at Eastern Washington University, where she was my work-study student when I was the university’s public information officer. I’ve had many work-study students over my years there and have stayed in touch with two of them, both of whom I consider my bonus children (or the daughters I wish I had).

Erin went on for advanced degrees, and after earning a Ph.D., she joined the faculty at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana, where she teaches writing and rhetoric. She is raising her daughters, Kennedy and Morgan, 7, there.

And this year, she brought the girls to Spokane over the holidays to visit family, and Erin was able to show her girls the city and region where she grew up.

During movie night at home in Indiana not long ago, Kennedy saw the 1991 film, “The Addams Family,” in which Wednesday, the young girl in the movie, had a small guillotine. Kennedy was fascinated. She is a young woman with a high aptitude for engineering and other STEM skills. She’s already constructed miniaturized versions of some of Leonardo DaVinci’s weapons just to see how they work.

So, for Christmas, her grandmother knew what would be just the perfect thing for Kennedy, and so that’s what she got for her – a 15-inch scale model (not a toy) of a guillotine. “I made sure to get one that wasn’t a toy, because they’re not toys, and quite frankly, if it was anybody but Kennedy, I wouldn’t have done it,” Christa told me.

It does have a steel “blade,” which has a thick flat edge and is consequently finger-safe. What Erin likes about it is how her daughter appreciates it as a piece of machinery and the process of operation (pins to pull out, wires to pull, etc.) – and, of course, because of the movie. It’s also given them the opportunity to talk about history and some of its darker moments while learning the mechanics of the thing.

I asked Kennedy what she did with the guillotine when she got it. “I got a bag of stale pretzels to decapitate,” she said. And she and her sister spent quite a bit of time finding what else might work. String cheese, not so good. Cheese puffs are next up, when they get back home.

I also asked if she would take it to school with her. “Oh no,” she told me. “They get upset if you even bring in nail clippers.”

Not the perfect gift for everyone, but for this bright and curious child, what could be more tailor-made and, frankly, thoughtful, than a guillotine from Grandma for Christmas? It’s all about context.

Kudos to Christa.