I’d prefer to come a-wassailing

I was in another physician’s office on Friday and I noticed something.

‘Why,’ I asked, ‘do you have a candle shaped like an elf who’s dressed as a doctor?’

‘‘A patient gave it to me,’ she said, laughing a bit.

‘The nice thing about getting candles as gifts,’ I told her,’ is that you can throw them away and say you used them. That’s like Awful Gift Getting 101.’

‘The lesson I’m learning today,’ she said after pausing, ‘is not to get you anything, because you’ll just throw it away.’