Tick Tock Tick Tock
NO, I don't have Gwen Stefani's song in my head (well, I do now!) - I am just thinking about how slowly time passes at work when I have other things to do - like go shopping for Christmas!
Thanks goodness our family does the chinese gift exchange thing, I am horrible at buying presents for other people. After we all grew up (well, I wouldn't necessarily put it that way since I don't really consider myself all growed up yet) we started doing a $50 Christmas draw where we only had to buy for one person. After a few years we realized it was easier if you just called the person up and said "hey, what do you want for Christmas?" and then when Christmas came everybody ended up getting exactly what they wanted. Sounds good to you doesn't it? However, the element of surprise was lost and it seemed like there was no point -why didn't we just buy ourselves what we wanted for $50 and not do the draw at all - it was the same end result, right?
So last year we tried to change it up a bit with the Chinese gift exchange -you know, where you buy one gift (a girly one if you're a girl and a boyish one if you're a boy) and you draw numbers and either unwrap or steal until we are all left with one gift. That way we didn't even have to worry about who was or wasn't going to make it -the rule is if you are coming bring a gift - that way there is always one for everybody. So now what do I do (and everyone else does I'm sure!) is...I buy a gift that I know I will like for myself and then if I end up with it -great! If not, no harm done, at least somebody else liked it. So here we are, on the most part, buying things for ourselves again! haha
In the end though, all that really matters is that we got to spend some quality time with friends and family, some of which we hardly ever see. It's a gift we go home with, a memory that money couldn't buy. It reminds me of this quote from Dr Suess:
"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more? "
Thanks goodness our family does the chinese gift exchange thing, I am horrible at buying presents for other people. After we all grew up (well, I wouldn't necessarily put it that way since I don't really consider myself all growed up yet) we started doing a $50 Christmas draw where we only had to buy for one person. After a few years we realized it was easier if you just called the person up and said "hey, what do you want for Christmas?" and then when Christmas came everybody ended up getting exactly what they wanted. Sounds good to you doesn't it? However, the element of surprise was lost and it seemed like there was no point -why didn't we just buy ourselves what we wanted for $50 and not do the draw at all - it was the same end result, right?
So last year we tried to change it up a bit with the Chinese gift exchange -you know, where you buy one gift (a girly one if you're a girl and a boyish one if you're a boy) and you draw numbers and either unwrap or steal until we are all left with one gift. That way we didn't even have to worry about who was or wasn't going to make it -the rule is if you are coming bring a gift - that way there is always one for everybody. So now what do I do (and everyone else does I'm sure!) is...I buy a gift that I know I will like for myself and then if I end up with it -great! If not, no harm done, at least somebody else liked it. So here we are, on the most part, buying things for ourselves again! haha
In the end though, all that really matters is that we got to spend some quality time with friends and family, some of which we hardly ever see. It's a gift we go home with, a memory that money couldn't buy. It reminds me of this quote from Dr Suess:
"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store? What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more? "
posted by maple blondie @ 4:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home