If you’re looking for something just a little different from the usual stocking stuffers for the kids, check out Pier 1’s selection of cute little wooden games and toys. Who’dve thunk?

Like a good little elf, I’ve been “making” gifts throughout the year. (Though I admit, this elf really started the last month or so. Shh, don’t tell Santa!) I’ve found a few “good” spots (i.e., the 3 and 1 year old can’t get that high, even with a chair). But now, that spot is full. Therein lies the dilema: Where to store the gifts?

So I’m looking to you, fellow elves, to have the “right” answers. If you don’t come through, there will be no surprises in this house. And that would just be a shame. (Do you feel guilted enough to comment now? Huh, do you?! )

I made good on my promise to get most of the shoppy parts nearly finished by November this year. It’s very liberating, not to mention easier on the bank account each month. And now I can turn my undivided attention to craftier pursuits!

Daniel is all finished, aside from a couple of stocking stuffers, though to be fair, he’s the easiest. One bigger toy and a few smaller ones — we won’t go overboard because his grandparents will do that for us. There are so very many things I’d like to get him (more to play with myself than anything, hee), that I’m really rather proud of my restraint!

I picked out all our cards very, very early, chronicled here. May I enthusiastically recommend Target for your holiday card needs? Such a huge selection — traditional, quirky, what have you — at reasonable prices. I can even get the stamps online, sweet.

Gifts for my family are either purchased and wrapped, or decided upon and orderable online. The home-made presents are well on their way (fingers crossed that they turn out!). Gifts for the inlaws are just a pleasant drive through the country away. Even D., who is notoriously difficult, is done in my head.

The only true challenge that remains will be Secret Santa

Hoorah!

Big Lots
Dollar Tree/Store
Target / Walmart
Michael’s / ACMoore / Joann’s
Barnes & Noble - calendars, novelty books, etc.
Linens & Things / Bed, Bath, Etc. - kitchen gadgets
Tuesday Morning - housewares
World Market
10,000 Villages
One World Market

Online:
kidsurplus.com

What are yours?

As I probably mentioned before, my mom’s side of the family has a reunion every five years at Christmas. This is the year that we are doing it. For gifts, we all draw names. We have four adult gifts to buy. Somebody’s lucking out and getting all the little guys, but anyway. . .

We are buying for my cousin, D, who is some high-falutin’ executive at an internets company in San Diego, CA, although you wouldn’t know that if you met him because he’s very unpretentious. He looks just like Jerry Seinfeld, by the way. Whenever I see him (every five years), I always have to marvel at how much he looks like him. I’m sure he’s sick of hearing about how much he looks like Jerry Seinfeld. He has varied interests and used to be semi-pro (I think) in beach volleyball out there. But, what do you get someone who makes lots more money than you do and whom you don’t even know very well even if he is related to you?

OK, next drawee: D’s wife L. I have met her twice. Once ten years ago and once five years ago. She’s very nice. I think she has an art background or her dad’s an artist, or a jazz musician. She has some kind of job in the high tech industry although I think it’s more on the human resources side of things. She’s very petite (D is very tall). She’s from California. That’s what I know about her. Now, what would you get someone who you knew that much about? I mean, I know more about some of my online friends than I do about her.

As it turns out though, I think shopping for women you don’t really know is easier than guys, because with women, you can always go for candles or bath salts or yummy lotions or calendars or a nice scarf or whatnot. Actually, I e-mailed both L and D earlier for gift suggestions and found out that they are renovating their house big time and that L might appreciate something having to do with home decor, etc. That made narrowing down a gift a little easier as someone had just told me about this new magazine called Dom*ino which is published by the same people who publish Lu*cky. It’s the same thing as Lu*cky, but about home decorating. It’s not very expensive so it fits our budget. That’s what L is getting.

Our other two names — one is my cousin’s husband whom I’ve never met, but I was able to figure something out for him (see earlier post). The other is another cousin’s son who is about 22 or something like that. I have no. frickn. clue what to get a 22 year old guy. There’s all the generic stuff like Old Navy gift card. . . hey, there’s an idea . . . maybe I’ll just to do that.

Gift cards are easy, right? But they kind of just scream, I don’t know you or what you could possibly want, so here’s this gift card for you to go find what you want. There’s no excitement when they open up that gift card envelope, there’s no oohing and aaahing. There’s no — that’s just what I needed or wanted. I know, I could get him a sweater or something, but again, kinda generic, and I really have no idea what his tastes are.

By the way, I think my cousin D is getting a gift card too.

Do you have to buy for friends or family you don’t know very well? What do you get them?

this is the description she gave me:

Pat is 45 and interested in Golf; country music; hunting,
Cooking/Grilling, and red wine. He’s not much of a reader. He can
always use golf balls, and always enjoys some nice red wine (or Crown
Royal) and kitchen/cooking gadget stuff.

Oh, and he lives in and is from Texas.

I don’t think I’ll be getting this for him.

I will be getting him theGrill & Broil Gift Box from Penzeys Spices. This place is awesome for the chef in your life!

Still recuperating from the Thanksgiving haze of meal-planning, grocery-shopping, house-tidying, and too much “quality” time with relatives, posts have been a bit . . well. . . non-existant.

So, I actually braved the Black Friday crowds yesterday morning at around 7:30. I was up already and figured I’d try to snag a couple of things on my list. Actually, the only place I went to was the local K-Mart which was selling a portable DVD player for a good price. The DVD player was something on the list for us. We have a 5+ hour car trip over X-mas, so this will preserve the last shreds of our sanity.

That’s all I got, actually. I didn’t want to be out very long because we needed to cook breakfast for our house-guests and J was coming down with a cold. I’m not sure I would have wanted to try to get up at 4:30 to be at places opening at 5:00, but it was kind of fun. Lots of moms or couples in mini-vans and SUVs. That’s who was out and about.

All I did to prepare for my shopping trip was take a shower, find the closest clothes without boogers caked on them, and alert J that I was leaving against his admonitions of “You are crazy!” But not others. There were women with festive X-mas sweatshirts on, matching jewelry, full makeup and perfectly coifed hair. This was clearly an “event” for them.

Since a lot of the stores are running Fri/Sat deals, I went out again this afternoon to several stores. I only ended up getting a gift for my 3-year-old niece (a set of magnetic dolls which you can put different clothes on) and a bedtime book for my 2 -year-old. There were a lot of people shopping, but it wasn’t unbearable.

So, did anyone else go out on Black Friday? What didya get?

I often miss the staff of the university library where I catalogued (was it really over five years ago?). They became kind of like a family, with, sometimes, the attendant quirkiness and infighting. So eventually, as in every family, the time comes for the offspring to move out.

But there were good times. One of the nicest traditions was the holiday white elephant-style exchange party.

At least in theory.

Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without one humbugger, and, in an act of sheer dumb coincidence, I just happened to bear the brunt secretly three years running. The entire staff knew just what a mule this person is in general, and probably each has their own teeth-gritting story to tell. This is mine.

It’s difficult to find just the right balance in a white elephant gift. You’ve got to juggle the low price imposition, the expected kitsch/humor factor, and at least a little practicability. Considering that, I think did a pretty decent job.

Year one. An impossibly huge ceramic “snack” set, consisting of a soup mug and bread plate festooned with borderline tacky candy canes and mistletoe abounding. The recipient who chose it from the pile made it obvious that it didn’t meet her high white elephant standards. The next person in line was charmed, however, and, as was her higher-number privilege, she “stole” the gift in lieu of opening a wrapped one.

Year two. Oh! I stumbled upon the most adorably-designed dustpan and brush at Target. The brush was a brown squirrel, the business end his bushy tail. And the pan was a green leaf, the handle/”stem” to which the squirrel could quite handily cling. If I hadn’t been so disgustingly poor at the time, I would’ve had one of my own, too (no - I paid nowhere near $30 for mine! Eesh!). In retrospect, I should’ve just given it to myself… because you’ll just never guess who chose my gift yet again. And she was even less thrilled than the year before, proclaiming the gift’s utter ridiculousness loudly and often. I admit, I don’t take criticism of my gifts well, so this repeated bashing was becoming quite a killjoy.

Year three. I’m nothing if not a closet optimist, so I decided to try again. I found a flowerpot breadmaking kit, complete with everything you’d need to bake a small cute loaf. And… well, you can probably see where this is going.

“What is this! Every year, I pick something stupid! I’m not doing this next year.”

Amen, sister. A-men.