The latest addition to the AAUGH.com Reference Library (well, one of the latest additions; it arrived on the same day as my preview copy of Complete Peanuts 1983-1984, but that will take some time to read through) is All I Want For Christmas…, a small-but-not-as-small-as-the-small-Hallmark-hardcovers hardcover published by Hallmark in 1972.

This 20 page full-color book was meant more as a high-end greeting card than as a piece of literature you’d buy for yourself (although that is obviously what I did). It shows letters to Santa being written by Lucy (a long list, and I got a grin out of the fact that everything is listed in the plural), Snoopy (dictated to Woodstock), Sally, and Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown’s wish is simple – he wants a very merry Christmas for – and then there’s a place to fill in the blank with the name of whomever you’re giving the book to.

Which has me thinking. The copy that I got is still blank. This book was never given to anyone! While as a collector, on one hand I appreciate the minty-conditionness of it, on the other hand it means that this book was meant for a life that it has never had (and in my hands, of course, will not have; I do not stock the Reference Library with the intent ot writing in things and giving them away.) I kind of like getting books with notes written in them, the little statements of affection that a gift giver gives a gift givee. There is some joy in that.

On the third hand (for I am that sort of a mutant), if such a book comes into my possession, that means that it is somehow now of more value to me than it was to the recipient. Perhaps the person who received it no longer cares about what grandma feels or the thanks they’re being given for having taught French well. Or maybe that recipient is no longer around to feel one way or the other. That’s the kickback to the joy.

Perhaps it is just as well that this book is blank.

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