When The Girls plus the girls (The Girls’ cousins) came of age, The Girls decided we– that is, all T/the G/girls’ families– would do Secret Santa. I wasn’t the biggest supporter of Secret Santa in the beginning but I sympathized with The Girls’ reasoning. Better to give and receive one nice gift that you actually wanted than try and spread Christmas budgets so thin no one received anything more than a chap stick from Dollar General. And now having seen how it actually worked, I support the idea. Sorta kinda.
This morning my mom called. Please note that Mama’s name is never included in the Secret Santa drawing. Mama is the keeper of the secret Secret Santa list, although Mama didn’t realize this until Miss. M. told her where on her fridge the list was. Anyway, Mama told me that Mr. Big Food’s name was in the left column (actually, she said Mr. Big Food’s Christian name) and mine was across from his in the right column. I confirmed that the arrow was in fact a two-way arrow:
Mr. Big Food’s Christian name <-----> Marica
You appreciate what this means, don’t you?
Mr. Big Food’s and my Christmas shopping is done!
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Nahhh. No way you get off that easy!
If you can’t think of _something_…then you are truly blessed!
We’re pretty much in that category…but still…there has to be _some_ little thing.
My birthday is Saturday. DH asked me what I wanted…after some thought, I said I had two ideas: fix my tractor/mower (which I actually bought for him, but he disdains) which has a flat tire, or a truck load of gravel for the driveway in our lower field, where I have horses. When we have rain, it gets pretty hard to get in and out – I don’t have 4 wheel drive. I have fears that my old boy – now 29 – will die and getting him out would be a real challenge. Or if one got sick, getting a vet out would be an equal problem.
He’s mulling it. Guess what I’m going to say if he asks me what I want for Christmas! The other one – whichever one he chooses! Both are expensive…. The gravel is probably a better choice – also more expensive – and do the most good. Fixing the tractor can wait till next spring – though it’s the cheaper one, and couldn’t hurt.
Now…don’t ask me why he won’t use it…that’s beyond my comprehension. I’ve reached the point where I think I have to do it myself before he’ll take over. Which he usually does…because he is certain he can do it better, you know.
By the way…times like these when I’m reminded that I am truly grateful to live where we do and when we do. We are _so_ fortunate.
We decided to play along– it is Christmas, after all. The limit is $25. I can well imagine that you know how far $25 goes to buying heirloom perennial herb seed for the new herb garden.
Now I have to recollect what $25 worth he’s been saying.
And on the bye & bye… we just returned from chicago where we saw people stacked up on top of each other with no elbow room. Yeah. We are not just fortunate– hey! we got lucky. We credit ourselves with using our [God-given] smarts to get the hell out of Dodge before it was too late.
Happy Birthday! Mine was yesterday. It was delightful. Hope yours is, too.