I get great gifts. I don't know how I manage it, as it is not part of a plan, but people give me creative gifts. It may be that I just have remarkable relatives and friends. It may be that as a somewhat antisocial person, I inspire risk-taking in shopping, or something.
When I celebrated my birthday this year, I got a great haul. My daughter and her family gave me the world. Or a facsimile of the world, in the form of a world globe. I had mentioned that our old one, which I think we got when my daughter and son were quite young, had broken. The new one is fancier, with metal rings that allow rotation in two axes, and not the traditional one. Since it's new, it also has more current representation of countries and so forth. My wife gave me access to the knowledge of the universe. Well, okay, she gave me a Kindle, which is almost the same thing. I can get and read books from just about anywhere on it. I also got an electric toothbrush, because Sharon thinks they are indispensable modern appliances that everyone loves. Using it is an adjustment, still, and I'm not convinced it is better than the free manual toothbrushes I get at the dentist's office, but I use it out of loyalty.
We are now in the middle of the Christmas holidays. I love Thanksgiving, because I have a lot to be thankful for, and I like turkey and other foods we eat at the Thanksgiving feast. This year, I grilled a spatchcocked turkey on a charcoal grill. It was delicious. Then comes December, with Advent Calendars, Solstice, and Christmas, with the tradition of giving gifts.
I got a few gifts early because they contained perishable stuff. One was a package of exotic meat sent by my sister-in-law, who also made me a tie dyed sweatshirt. The meat included alligator sausage, wild boar sausage, duck sausage, ground antelope, and kangaroo sausage. I have eaten alligator, wild boar, duck, and antelope before, but the kangaroo is new. I enjoy adding to the species I have tasted. I guess she knows that. The box came a couple of weeks ago, I think, and was kept in the trunk of our old Toyota Camry, which we call Molly. It was cold enough that the cold packaging was still frozen when I opened the box, but Sharon was getting nervous keeping it in the car that long. We also opened the box from my sister and her husband, which contained cookies, candy, and three kinds of pears. We had the last pear today. They were all delicious. I can't say I know what kind of pears they were. I'm enjoying working my way through the varieties of food we've received this year. My sister-in-law and brother sent a gourmet New England Breakfast box, which has also been fun.
For actual Christmas, I got a lock picking kit. Lock picking was a craft at a craft evening Liz and I went to for Valentine's Day some recent year. We also tried blacksmithing, wood working, and stamping metal. I seemed to have some talent for lock picking, but didn't take the tools. Not sure why. Just not thinking clearly. But now I have an extensive set, along with some transparent locks to practice on. That was from my daughter and her family. They gave me expanded access to the real world, after giving me the model.
My son and his partner gave me a wood carving kit. It has step by step instructions, with a model showing each step, for carving a head. I will give it a shot, though I haven't put it on the calendar yet. And now I am a Scottish Lord. Liz got a square foot of Scotland for me, along with a proclamation that I am now a land owner in Scotland, and entitled to a, um, title. She got herself one, too, to remain on equal terms with me socially, I suppose.
For giving gifts, I pretty much go along with Liz's plans. I ordered her a tie dyed hoodie, not knowing about Karen's plan to outfit us all in tie dye herself. The one I ordered is the wrong size. I also ordered a phone holder for Liz's bike. Maybe next year, I will consult my children, who seem to have orders of magnitude more creativity in finding gifts than I do.
No comments:
Post a Comment