Only five days left until

My wife makes me make a "wish list" on Amazon ... and she does the same, and so does her dad and brother. It seems to be somewhat against the "spirit" of the holidays, but people want to get you things you actually want or need, and will appreciate it.

Chill Cow,

People who serve as political appointees on school boards, survey reviewers for county committees etc. receive too much cash during the holidays. 😉
A nice gift card makes life easier.

seriously, I have received gift certificates for the movie complex and my favorite restaurants and it was appreciated.
As kid, I had an uncle who gave the kids money in an envelope. It was a new bill that crisp and clean from the bank in one of those cards with the portrait showing. I know my eyes would widen when seeing the bill.

But just rolling off some bills from your roll seems a a little tacky and maybe somewhat pretentious in appearance.

> Is it wrong to give money instead of things akin to BigE's boy peeing in the lake nightlight?

I'm the 3rd generation owner of that little prize. Dave Ingram found a couple on ebay. I'm with you Mr. Cow. I don't like gift cards either. I still have 2 from Kohls dept. store that Mom gave me several years ago.
Gift cards don't mean anything and stuff I get with them won't mean anything.
But that lamp gives me and Dad tons to talk about. I called him last night after I got it working. I had no idea it had been around since he was a little kid. I just knew of it as a night light when I stayed with Granny & Grandpa during some summers. Come to find out, Dad had no idea about that either. It's like we are discovering things about each other. Almost like long lost brothers whose paths have crossed but one never knowing about the other.
When I opened that box last night, I wondered where in the hell he found it. Then I called him and he wondered how in the hell I knew about it at all. That made for about 2 hours of story telling from each of us.
He is still finding pictures of me with his parents on some vacation somewhere that he didn't know anything about. Some of them I can tell him all about just from his description but many I'll have to wait until he sends them before I'll recognize them - which I will. I remember everything. One day we were talking about places I/we have lived. I said something about a house on S. Segal Dr. in Decatur, IL and that blew him away. I was only 2 or 3 at the time. He asked if I remembered a little dog. "Sure, you mean Tilly." "Do you remember the house number?" "Sure #5 South Segal Dr." He was floored.
Then I go on to tell how we moved to a house on Wayside Dr. near Lake Decatur.

A year or so later, me and Dad and Granny are heading down to visit Grandpa in a VA hospital around Flora or Fairfield but on the way Dad needs to stop in Shelbyville to pick his brand new car - a 65 Mustang none the less. The Army COE was building the damn at Lake Shelbyville at the time and we sometimes would stop and take pics. Of course Homeland security would have our a$$e$ for that these days.

Anyway.... back on point.... Those kind of things give us common ground to have great talks about for hours. A petty gift card can't touch that. He has often lamented how he wished to have video taped or recorded some stuff about him and Grandpa on those rare occasions when Grandpa would actually talk about stuff. I keep saying he needs to record our phone calls. I imagine one of these days we'll just have to sit down with video camera running and just start gabbing like we do on the phone. Like the card said "the years just keep bringing us closer". Nary a truer passage could say it any better.

You can take away all my stuff, but never my memories.

I agree fully that presenting the money publicly is tacky. That's why it is handled one on one outside of the standard gift-giving party.

I have been on both sides of a gift being labeled too big or too small and it never goes well. Fortunately, the days of everyone present being expected to have a present for everyone else present is history now. That really got unwieldy as you were getting something for someone you really didn't know very well, let alone have a clue as to what would be something they would appreciate. We tried drawing names a few times, but even that seemed a bit surreal, especially the year I drew the mother of the husband of my ex-wife. We tried the old Chinese gift exchange sort of like that shown on the episode of The McCarthy's a few nights ago. Every present was to be a $20 gift card so that everyone gave, and received, a $20 value. One person got upset when no one wanted the gift card he had purchased for the exchange.

I would much rather swap stories, sing songs and have a jolly time rather than fret over what was given and what was received. The experience of being there should be the best present of all.

It is amazing what will stir memories in one person and mean absolutely nothing to another. My sister is one who has almost no interest in anything that has occurred prior to today. I'm the polar opposite. On the other hand I have witnessed cases where blood feuds were created out of two or more siblings fighting over something that stirred memories from their early life. At an auction one day, the auctioneer started the bidding for a piece of etched glass that had been in the front door of the house many years earlier. The three daughters all wanted it. The auctioneer started it for a dollar and would only take dollar raises thus creating a very amusing scene for the remainder of the crowd. He was a friend of the family and knew what was going to happen.

:good:

> My wife makes me make a "wish list" on Amazon ... and she does the same, and so does her dad and brother. It seems to be somewhat against the "spirit" of the holidays, but people want to get you things you actually want or need, and will appreciate it.

I'm ok with that.
I have a big wish list at Amazon right now.
Mostly model railroading stuff. The only things I really need I keep forget to add. Not like anyone is going to do anything about it. New shoes is the most expensive thing on it and underwear comes in 2nd. All the model RR stuff combined doesn't even come close to touching those two. So much for having my layout fully operational by Christmas. Things just didn't work out.
I would rather someone just drop-ship me stuff than send me a gift card. Before Mom died she would do that. Just call me and ask what I needed. If I didn't really "need" anything, well then "what do you want?" All done. Sometimes she never asked. I just get this huge box one day at the office out of the blue. It's a super-king sized 6" down comforter with flannel duvet. I had only mentioned to her one time that I was heating the house with wood I cut myself and refused to run the electric baseboard heaters. About 7 or so years later I'm telling about my new adventures in land surveying out in the field and one day a new box from Lands End shows up with a down filled water-resistant parka with a zip out/in liner. It wasn't anywhere near Christmas then so I called her asking what that was all about. She just said "I don't want you getting cold out there on those mountains." A couple months later near about Christmas I get another box from LL Bean with waterproof gortex lined boots. I guess she was reading between the lines hearing me tell of some of my surveying adventures.
Mom had a memory like a steel trap. She never asked my sizes about anything.
I would have challenged anyone to take her on in a mental acuity test. Her husband, my step-Dad, had two PhDs and an MD and he couldn't come close. Truth be told, he admits to me now that she was the one that wrote his doctoral dissertations.

Sorry to ramble. This is a tough time for me.
I'll take my little boxes of old memories and odd-ball stuff Dad sends over any gift cards all day long.

Money just mucks up every dam thing.
Perhaps that's one reason I have become so Spartan.
My little [half]brother got a Christmas one year from Dad years and years ago with a check inside - $50 I think Dad said. Apparently Jon took umbrage with this amount and went out of his way to write void all over the check, package up the card with the check in a new envelope and send it back saying "that's not enough". Then he has his wife call my step-Mom (his Mom) and proceed to give her an ear-full. What the frack???? Since then, Jon will no contact with any of us. He won't answer emails or telephone calls. Letters and cards are refused and returned to this day.
What a bitter m-f'er!!!

Our other brother Bill and I grew up with Capt. Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans. One year Bill decides to start calling him [Jon] "Mr. Greed Jeans". Me and Bill were early teens at the time, but Bill spotted that attitude right away.

I truly feel sorry for Jon. That hatred is going to eat him up. I can't imagine it's all about a paltry $50 check in a Christmas card. When he was in the Navy stationed at JAX-NAS or in Mayport and had leave he would come stay with me in Stone Mountain, GA. I bought all the food, beer, etc. When he was about to be deployed, he would bring his car and all his stuff to my house and I'd fly him back to JAX.

I wish he'd get over it.
Last time I saw him was at Granny's 90th b-day party in 2008. I hadn't seen nor heard from him in at least 10 years. He has a good size belly now and I patted him joking when "it was due?". Apparently he didn't take that as the obvious joke it was. Everyone else thought it was funny as all get out - including Granny. Next he's bitchin at Dad about me and what an a-hole I was to him - neverminding the fact that me him and Bill spent the entire afternoon into the evening and late night together drinking together without a single problem.

Perhaps I'll try to reach out to him again. Dad says to give up. "He won't answer your calls same as he does me or Mom's".

Only zero days left until

Hallelujah, it is over! Now the question will turn to something like: Have you finished off the leftovers from the Christmas dinner yet?