the christmas that wasn't

At a November glance, my December didn't look too busy. But as the succeeding weeks approached, more and more activities found their way onto my calendar. The same could be said of the folks on my gift-buying agenda, so aside from lack of time to shop, I didn't have everyone's lists until just a few weeks ago. I was sort of going day to day for a while there, but fortunately we had Friday off work (as our "bonus") so I did most of my shopping then. Even on December 24th, as I was getting ready for church, it didn't really hit me that Christmas was near. Ditto after church, when I had all of my presents yet to wrap, which extended into the wee hours of 2:30.

This year presented a change in the routine in that Christmas was on a Sunday. Our church has experimented with different options in the past when this has occurred, but this time they had a full worship service just like any other Sunday, choir and all, so we went. That meant we missed out on mom's delicious Christmas breakfast, although she did make the traditional Christmas granola. It also pushed back gift exchange, dinner, and other family activities by a few hours, so all around it was a little different. I suppose that's why, even when the day was done and we were relaxing by the lit up tree, I almost felt as if Christmas never happened.

That is, until I looked at the stack of gift cards I received. And may I interject here that Target has some of the coolest gift cards EVER! I wrote about the dogs playing poker gift card previously, but for Christmas I received a candy-cane-shaped scratch & sniff Target card as well as a thick "card" that plays a tune of the Target dogs barking "Jingle Bells." Best... gift cards... ever.

I got into the gift card habit years ago as a workaround to getting clothes for Christmas: rather than having people guess what type of clothes I would like, I'd just ask for a JCPenney gift card and do my own shopping. As we all got older and there were fewer and fewer battery-operated gadgets under the tree, most of our lists included gift cards. Some people write them off as impersonal and unimaginative, but I disagree: I now have $30 to spend at Panera Bread, I get to choose what I want, and besides, what else would they do? Wrap a box of week-old bagels and cold coffee?

However, I'll admit the gift card thing is getting a bit stale. This year, I tried to dress things up by making themed gift boxes. I took one item off the person's list and then furnished a box or basket with related items. Dollar Tree was a great help in this regard. It also lets me think creatively about how to package each gift without depriving the recipient of the joy of ripping up colorful wrapping paper, which is just as much a part of Christmas as candy cane cookies and Spode dinnerware.

I'm sure New Year's Eve will come and go just as quickly, and then we can concentrate on what's truly important: how many more days of winter we have to endure before we can go up to the cottage again!