Things I Love – Giving the right Gift

The holidays are stressful for all sorts of different reasons, but the one that gets me the most is Christmas shopping (unless it’s for myself). I am just not very good at it. My sister always seems to come up with really creative, meaningful gifts which make my gift cards look really impersonal (but practical, right?) Not that it is a contest, but I would really like to get the people I love gifts that they love. This year I finally succeeded, not once but at least 3 times.

First, there is my cat Shandy. She is old and crabby and hates everything except sleeping. She recently found that my yarn basket was a pretty good place to take a nap. Not that I mind really, but she tends to vomit as old cats do and no matter how many times I told her not to hork in my yarn, I knew it was only a matter of time. So I bought her a kitty bed for Christmas. She loves it. I’ve never seen her so happy (mostly because she’s never happy.)

For my parents, I scanned all of our family photos (which I smuggled out of their house and kept for a month without them noticing). I made them a DVD so they would have digital copies and also put together a Shutterfly book of my sister and me growing up. The book made my mom cry.  Good gift number 2.

And thirdly, I crocheted a unicorn amigurumi doll for my 3 year old niece. She unwrapped it, her eyes got really big, and then she ran over and hugged me, saying “Thank you, thank you, Auntie Corky! A purple Unicorn, just what I always wanted!” Awesome.