I hate Christmas shopping.
It’s not that I begrudge buying presents for other people. Noel would tell you that I try to be a very giving person (and I hope I succeed).
It’s that I worry about if the other person will like the gift and also if it is too much / too little to give them.
These are pretty stupid things to worry about, I am sure, because I try to be the type of person who is gracious in accepting gifts, even if they aren’t exactly up my alley. People are giving me gifts out of the goodness of their hearts, and I take them in the spirit that they are given.
To be honest, I’d rather have someone come out and say, “I’d like item A, item B, and/or item C for Christmas.” It makes it a lot easier to get the item or even get some inspiration from that.
Noel is very hard to buy gifts for. He’s kinda the guy who has everything… So when I get a flash of inspiration on what I can buy him, I’m always nervous he’s going to buy whatever I’ve bought already, or buy the only gift idea I have for him. (You might laugh, but this does happen sometimes. I try, as gently as I can, to steer him in a different direction. One year, I actually told him, “No, you don’t want to buy that.” He did get the hint…)
I kept getting upset about buying him a Christmas present this year because I had zero idea what to get him. Every time I asked him, he’d say, “Oh no, don’t buy me a present… You paid for us to go to see your family this year” or something similar, and inside, I’d be getting more and more upset because that answer wasn’t helping me figure out what to get him for Christmas.
So, in the last few days, there have been a few flashes of inspiration, and I finally chose the gift I wanted to get him. I did have to shift around some cash to make it happen and got some advice from a good friend. Noel’s present is paid for, wrapped, and hidden somewhere safe… Phew.
Now, for the next lot of gifts for other people…
PS. I did promise that I would show you our Christmas decorations for Christmas 2012. We were waiting on some new lights for one of our Christmas trees, and they arrived Tuesday. Noel put them up, but I haven’t had time to put the decorations up… I’m doing that this afternoon. Hopefully my next blog will be to show you all the pretty things we do with the house for Christmas in our own modest way.
Beam Me Up, Scotty 