It's the thought that counts

My family draws names at Christmas time, and long ago I put myself in charge of this drawing. The reason being is that we aren't together to draw the names prior to the holiday. So someone has to do it and since I threw out the idea and since everyone comes to Florida I took charge. I make a list of all of the people involved and usually one of my kids (or in the past my mom) draws the names. Immediately, I realized there could be a problem in that spouses could get spouses and parents could get children and since these people buy for one another anyway I had to do some rearranging so this didn't occur. For the most part it worked out well, but lately it has worked out to be the same each year. This year Kelly and Tom actually drew from the pile themselves and got each other's names. They refused to let me rearrange when the time came and so it worked out that we bought for each other; I had Maya, Maya had me, Marilyn had Rusty, Rusty had Marilyn, and so on. The kids name drawing worked out much better and I didn't have to rearrange a thing.

Once the names have been drawn people make wish lists on Amazon. I'm not sure how long ago this was established, but I do know that every other year I'm bored with the whole arrangement. Once upon a time gift giving was a thoughtful process and now we just buy to be buying. I hate it. Somewhere in our giving we have lost that excitement that one gets when watching the recipient unwrap a gift that was hand picked. As we get older we take the easy route to get things finished or we don't feel we know one another well enough to be able to pick out something. That makes me sad and so this year I decided to hell with what everyone thought and decided if I thought of things that I wanted to give I would. And I did.

A year ago while visiting my brother and my SIL during her chemo treatment my brother mentioned a book that he and my mother use to read together. He made a comment about that being one thing he would have liked to have had out of my mother's stuff, but that the book was long gone. I made a note of that (because I don't remember things anymore) and tried to find the book for his birthday. I couldn't find it, but gave it another go this Christmas. Turns out I had the name incorrect and once that was corrected I found the book on Amazon and ordered it. Even though I didn't have his name I wrapped it and gave it to him anyhow because I was so proud of myself and excited to see his surprise. I think he was touched.

While working on my blog one day I was looking back at old photos I had scanned and a thought came to me. My dad was the photographer in the old days and because of that I wondered if Maya, my gift exchange partner, even had those pictures. Knowing that I had them all, I scanned them and created a "Family Christmas through the years" book for her. Then of course, I got worried she might think that wasn't enough and so I bought her something from her list too. Bam!

The book was a hit especially with my brother who once told me he didn't want any of our family pictures, not even his own birth photos. Times change, of course, and he grabbed the book before Maya could look through it. He took photos of the photos and posted them on social media, hugged me, and told me I had done well. Guess what he will be getting this year for his birthday?

I did a few other little things for people, giving out items that belonged to my mother and that I thought might be special or sentimental to each person. I was very excited about my gifts and it was everything I wanted it to be on Christmas morning. Little did I know that my girls were doing the same thing.

Darcy made handmade gifts. For Madison she made a jar of little sayings that Madison can pull out and read when she is lonely at school or feeling down or feeling sad, etc. It made Tom and me cry, but then I opened my gift and cried even harder. For Tom she found handmade puzzles at the mall. He is a puzzle nut and she got him a couple that kept everyone entertained.

Maddy made handmade gifts too. For Darcy she made stickers with sayings on them from Darcy's favorite TV shows. She also made her a BuzzFeed sweatshirt. She made Kelly a shirt with a saying from Modern Family's Phil Dunphy. She got Tom a CD from this group he listens to and who had just released a new album. For me she noted something I had said a while back about learning to knit and got me just that.

They were both very excited to give us our gifts and we were just as excited and touched to get them. I loved all of the gifts I received from everyone, but handing out and watching everyone else open theirs was my favorite part of the morning. Now I've got to start working on two years from now so I can top what I did this year.