Write Back Weekend: "Tell Me What You Got. What You Really, Really Got"
With it being New Years Eve, another holiday season is about to come to a close.
The Christmas season has always been a bit of a bittersweet time for me. There's so much anticipation in the month or two leading up to the holidays that anything that happens or doesn't happen almost seems like a letdown. That's not to say that my Christmas wasn't nice, because it was. It's just like I'd imagine most people (present company excluded) felt about their prom. All the preparation just doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. Christmas is a lot like that, minus the corsages and awkward slow dances, depending on how you celebrate, of course.
You know the other bummer about Christmas? It's going to the stores just after all the excitement has worn off. Oh sure, you can get some pretty nifty details for next year's gifts, but shelves and displayed once wonderfully decorated and well stocked suddenly look like the aftershock of the LA riots. Witnessing this shameless downward spiral happen so quickly reminds me of the first snowfall of winter. It's all so beautiful and nice, until they take all the snow and make it a muddy mashed potatoed mess in the middle of a parking lot, that is.
All of this is my should be patented, long winded way of telling you about some of the good gifts I got this Christmas by way of last week's TITMT question.
Gifts I Gave:
1. Secret Santa At Your Service- For the past two years I've decided to join in all the reindeer games by playing the school wide secret Santa. In some places secret Santa doesn't work all that well because there are under 10 employees and process of elimination leads the cat getting out of the bag. It also adds the burden of giving good secret Santa gifts since they are bound to come back and haunt you, or be returned to you next Christmas, whatever comes first.
Of course I can't just do secret Santa, I gotta do it BIG. The past two years I have been lucky enough to have gotten someone who I'm either good friends with or who is good friends of a friend. This makes it a lot easier to get them something they'd really like rather than something they'd rather re-gift. I also should probably explain the way we do secret Santa in my school. For us, we do five days of mini presents leading up to the Christmas breakfast where the big presents are revealed. My personal touch involves writing short, two line poems that accompany the little gifts which I won't bore you with here. I have gotten quite a few compliments on my efforts which makes me feel it is all worth it. Of course the more years I work there the more likely the poem thing will be traced back to me.
2. Two Tickets to Paradise Jersey Boys- Last year at Christmas I decided to buy my parents tickets to see the show Jersey Boys on Broadway. But since my parents are picky and hard to surprise, they had to know in advance I was planning to do this. So they were happy to get the tickets but wanted me to hold off until the weather got better for them to go.
Well I should have trusted my gut instinct and just gotten them then because then the Tony Awards came around and Jersey Boys won a few which = longer waiting to get tickets for me. This year though I bit the bullet and decided to just go ahead and purchase them and get them now for May. This way there's no snow, just a great show in hopefully nice weather.
3. More Than Words Can Say- I always enjoy getting gifts for my students in class. I know that many of them do not have much and I like having the opportunity to get them something they might not otherwise receive. I have to say though that the last two years, with my classes being so horrible, I haven't felt very much like in the gift giving mood. That's why it was so refreshing this year to have a class that I actually WANTED to buy good gifts for!
This year I also had help from my elf, otherwise known as the aide in my room. Together we completely splurged on these 21 kids. They got the usual Christmas goodie bag full of candy, pencils and erasers, but my aide also ordered picture frames for their pictures and made personalized ornaments for each child. But my favorite gift had to be the dictionary I bought each child. Some of them were really excited to get one, others probably didn't see its value but I'm hoping it's a gift that keeps on giving.
Gifts I Received:
1. Like, Totally- This year my boyfriend got me Trivial Pursuit, Totally 80's edition. As anyone who knows me well knows, I love all things 80's. That's the good news. The bad news is no one wants to play with me out of fear that I'm going to kick their ass.
2. Put Your Records On- I've never been a typical girl, and if you knew that, or me at all, the next gift I want will be of no surprise to you. It is a Vinyl and Cassette music Ripper so that you can take hard to find music that you have on tapes or God forbid, records, and turn them into mp3 format. When I opened up this gift there was a bit of stunned silence. Once they understood what it was, they just couldn't understand why I'd want it. Leave it to a dork like me to have a lot of music I can't find anywhere else that I must convert. What can I say? Kirk Cameron converts people left behind, I convert songs.
3. Souper!- One of my oldest friends and I still exchange gifts after all these years. This year I bought a gift for her and her newborn who was celebrating her first Christmas. I list what she gave me here because I thought it was cool and different, although I haven't used it yet. She gave me different soup mixes because I'm SO soup obsessed. There was supposed to be a mini crock pot with it too to make some of the soups, but apparently that part of the gift got intermingled with someone else's so I'll have to wait to actually use the crock pot part. That doesn't really stop me from eating soup though but really, what does?
The rest of the things I got were much more of your typical fare. Things to make girls look and smell pretty pretty much covers a bulk of it. Jewelry, makeup, nail polish, body lotion and spray, a new coat, a new robe and a few other things I'm sure I'm missing. And what wasn't typical girl stuff was really technological stuff.
The older I get though the more I see the worth in giving rather than receiving. It really is rewarding when you give the right gift to someone. That's not to say I don't like getting good gifts though. What do you think? I'm crazy!
So here it is, my final "gift" is to all of you, a wish for a Happy New Year for everyone!
The Christmas season has always been a bit of a bittersweet time for me. There's so much anticipation in the month or two leading up to the holidays that anything that happens or doesn't happen almost seems like a letdown. That's not to say that my Christmas wasn't nice, because it was. It's just like I'd imagine most people (present company excluded) felt about their prom. All the preparation just doesn't hold a candle to the real thing. Christmas is a lot like that, minus the corsages and awkward slow dances, depending on how you celebrate, of course.
You know the other bummer about Christmas? It's going to the stores just after all the excitement has worn off. Oh sure, you can get some pretty nifty details for next year's gifts, but shelves and displayed once wonderfully decorated and well stocked suddenly look like the aftershock of the LA riots. Witnessing this shameless downward spiral happen so quickly reminds me of the first snowfall of winter. It's all so beautiful and nice, until they take all the snow and make it a muddy mashed potatoed mess in the middle of a parking lot, that is.
All of this is my should be patented, long winded way of telling you about some of the good gifts I got this Christmas by way of last week's TITMT question.
Gifts I Gave:
1. Secret Santa At Your Service- For the past two years I've decided to join in all the reindeer games by playing the school wide secret Santa. In some places secret Santa doesn't work all that well because there are under 10 employees and process of elimination leads the cat getting out of the bag. It also adds the burden of giving good secret Santa gifts since they are bound to come back and haunt you, or be returned to you next Christmas, whatever comes first.
Of course I can't just do secret Santa, I gotta do it BIG. The past two years I have been lucky enough to have gotten someone who I'm either good friends with or who is good friends of a friend. This makes it a lot easier to get them something they'd really like rather than something they'd rather re-gift. I also should probably explain the way we do secret Santa in my school. For us, we do five days of mini presents leading up to the Christmas breakfast where the big presents are revealed. My personal touch involves writing short, two line poems that accompany the little gifts which I won't bore you with here. I have gotten quite a few compliments on my efforts which makes me feel it is all worth it. Of course the more years I work there the more likely the poem thing will be traced back to me.
2. Two Tickets to
Well I should have trusted my gut instinct and just gotten them then because then the Tony Awards came around and Jersey Boys won a few which = longer waiting to get tickets for me. This year though I bit the bullet and decided to just go ahead and purchase them and get them now for May. This way there's no snow, just a great show in hopefully nice weather.
3. More Than Words Can Say- I always enjoy getting gifts for my students in class. I know that many of them do not have much and I like having the opportunity to get them something they might not otherwise receive. I have to say though that the last two years, with my classes being so horrible, I haven't felt very much like in the gift giving mood. That's why it was so refreshing this year to have a class that I actually WANTED to buy good gifts for!
This year I also had help from my elf, otherwise known as the aide in my room. Together we completely splurged on these 21 kids. They got the usual Christmas goodie bag full of candy, pencils and erasers, but my aide also ordered picture frames for their pictures and made personalized ornaments for each child. But my favorite gift had to be the dictionary I bought each child. Some of them were really excited to get one, others probably didn't see its value but I'm hoping it's a gift that keeps on giving.
Gifts I Received:
1. Like, Totally- This year my boyfriend got me Trivial Pursuit, Totally 80's edition. As anyone who knows me well knows, I love all things 80's. That's the good news. The bad news is no one wants to play with me out of fear that I'm going to kick their ass.
2. Put Your Records On- I've never been a typical girl, and if you knew that, or me at all, the next gift I want will be of no surprise to you. It is a Vinyl and Cassette music Ripper so that you can take hard to find music that you have on tapes or God forbid, records, and turn them into mp3 format. When I opened up this gift there was a bit of stunned silence. Once they understood what it was, they just couldn't understand why I'd want it. Leave it to a dork like me to have a lot of music I can't find anywhere else that I must convert. What can I say? Kirk Cameron converts people left behind, I convert songs.
3. Souper!- One of my oldest friends and I still exchange gifts after all these years. This year I bought a gift for her and her newborn who was celebrating her first Christmas. I list what she gave me here because I thought it was cool and different, although I haven't used it yet. She gave me different soup mixes because I'm SO soup obsessed. There was supposed to be a mini crock pot with it too to make some of the soups, but apparently that part of the gift got intermingled with someone else's so I'll have to wait to actually use the crock pot part. That doesn't really stop me from eating soup though but really, what does?
The rest of the things I got were much more of your typical fare. Things to make girls look and smell pretty pretty much covers a bulk of it. Jewelry, makeup, nail polish, body lotion and spray, a new coat, a new robe and a few other things I'm sure I'm missing. And what wasn't typical girl stuff was really technological stuff.
The older I get though the more I see the worth in giving rather than receiving. It really is rewarding when you give the right gift to someone. That's not to say I don't like getting good gifts though. What do you think? I'm crazy!
So here it is, my final "gift" is to all of you, a wish for a Happy New Year for everyone!
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