"Santa" brought the usual gifts at our house this year- what did he bring to you? ....Electronics and clothing for hubster (poor man, he gets winter clothes for xmas and summer clothes for his bday and that's most of what he gets, wardrobe-wise, all year long.) He also gets " novelty " items related to various college personas and hobbies from back in the day which I cannot mention here, as this is a family blog. Kids got more video game crap, some clothes, gift cards for music downloads and clothing and video games. They also got tablets for downloading books for school and all other cool stuff you can do with them. Hubster got me jewelry (I long ago trained him to shop from a carefully edited pre-approved list that I supply him before any major gift-giving holiday). Really, nothing was unexpected, everything vetted long before the holiday - my sons researched and chose which tablet they wanted- and we like it just that way.*
The wild-card in our holiday gift-giving each year is always my m-i-l, bless her heart. Not knowing what she will do, from year to year, always adds a little frisson of anticipation to our festive holiday mornings. Last year, she bought one 4-pack of "The Nature Channel" geography videos, and cut them up, giving each of us a different continent. They still had the plastic band that connected all four, attached. Hubster sometimes does well- clothing, books, and expensive tools or electronic things. Some years, the clothes are all the wrong size, or girl's clothing, or weird colors. It's a toss-up each year. One year she gave the boys 32 different G.I. Joes. One year she sent a giant bouncy horse that took hubster and me 10 hours to assemble, the night before, and we only just barely finished when the kids woke us up at 6 am. Joy! You have read about my interesting gifts from her over the years: the prune doll devil, the bag of hay, the Clear Out Your Clutter book. Well, m-i-law went to Germany again this year, to the Christmas markets to shop. Did she buy us more figurines, ( she seems determined that we will collect owls, Hummels, wood carvings- whether we want to, or not) cuckoo clocks, Christmas ornaments, knick-knacks, gimcracks, paddy-wacks? No. She bought us extremely expensive, hand-embroidered wool, velvet, and leather ,with hand-carved stag horn buttons, Tyrolean clothing. Suitable for wearing next time we stage a family production of The Sound of Music. In sizes that fit no one. Merry Christmas !
