My daughter Emma and I put in a shift today wrapping presents at the Borders Books in Hollywood as a fundraiser for Moving Arts, my theatre company. It turned out to be one of the most fun holiday experiences of the year.

I have to admit, when Steve Lozier, the theatre’s newly hired managing director (that’s him, on the right), announced this mini-fundraiser during his first company meeting last week, I was leery. It seemed hastily conceived and penny ante. Wrapping Christmas gifts in exchange for donations to the theatre — was that really something we wanted to be doing now? I wanted to be supportive, though, so I checked the signup sheet against my schedule and found the one block of time I could volunteer: noon to two on Christmas Eve. Other company members thought that having my attractive and charming nine-year-old in tow would help raise money, so I dutifully enlisted her.

What I expected was a long line of irritated shoppers taking it out on us. We wouldn’t be alone. I don’t know how your Christmas season has been going, but today I got a dire holiday card from a good friend. It read:

Dear Lee, Valorie & Kids,

Stay away from the malls! People are crazier & meaner than ever this year! A coworker gave me some constructive criticism the other day: “Stop answering the phones like a fucking retard!!!” You get the idea.

(And this is from a man who loves Christmas, someone who takes to heart every moment of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.)

Instead of that sort of experience with Christmas Eve shoppers, to my surprise what I got was a two-hour series of discussions about books with ardent book lovers. It was like speed dating for bibliophiles, and cemented for me the one key advantage book stores retain over Amazon.com: You can run into people like yourself and share your love for books.

• I got into a discussion with one man about both Christopher Hitchens (whom I’ve read, and met) and Alain de Botton (whom I’ve read); the discussion led into the war in Iraq — which we thought Hitchens had been attractively eloquent but dead wrong about — and the relative merits of Proust versus Henry James. (I’ll take James.)
• Someone else was buying the new Robert Plant / Alison Kraus disc as a gift. “I hear that’s good,” I said. He countered, “I have too. Surprising, because I wouldn’t buy a record by either one of them.”
• One of the books we wrapped was a beautiful large softcover coffee table book, remaindered, that promised to share The History of Art. It was stunning. I took a break and ran to the back of the store to buy my own copy, but they were gone.
• When I saw Steve wrapping a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel “The Road” for someone, I of course piped in to say that I’d read that. “That’s a cheery holiday pick-me-up,” I volunteered. The customer responded that he’d read all of McCarthy and was trying to get his girlfriend involved in the author. “If she reads it,” I said, “she won’t forget that one.”
• Someone else bought two Dick Francis paperbacks and a how-to on plot development — these were presents for an aspiring writer of genre. The purchaser said that his friend is good with characters and dialogue, but she needs help with plot and he wanted to support her. I told him that I teach writing and in my experience, writers do need support — the image of the writer living and working in utter solitude is a canard; a good workshop with supportive colleagues provides a crucial advantage. Then I referred him to my friend Sid Stebel‘s workshop — Sid has launched many a career. The man was grateful and tipped the jar again.
• One young man asked me to wrap an alluring deluxe hardcover of pinups by Vargas. It was, he said, for his mom. “How old’s your mom?” I asked. “Forty-one,” he said. “Oh,” I replied, “mine is 83.” And, it went without saying, wouldn’t have the slightest interest in a book of pinups. He then told me that his relationship with his mother is new; that he was adopted, but when he turned 18 he was allowed access to his adoption records and he tracked his birth mother down to Orange County. Since then, he’s found that they have a lot of shared interests, Vargas being one of them. “That’s a good story,” I said, “one I’m going to tell.” And now I have.

This Christmas season, I spent exactly 15 minutes in the mall shopping for presents — and that was to pick up a toy to drop off at my local Assemblyman’s office so he and his staff could wrap it and give it to some kid who otherwise wouldn’t have much of a Christmas. That was it. So my experience has not been the norm. But I will say this: From what I saw in two hours today at Borders Books in Hollywood, people are thoughtful and gracious. At least, if they’re passionate about books.

Oh, and they’re generous, too: Before Emma and I even started, the theatre had made almost $500. If you look at the tip jar in front of Steve, you see money rising to the brim. Many of those bills are fives and twenties. When I find out the final tally, I’ll let you know what it was.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 24th, 2007 at 6:40 pm and is filed under On being, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.