The gift list

[mellicious]

(Diary-X has been wonky the last couple of days, and now doesn't seem to be working at all - that is, you can read past entries but not post new ones - so I'm posting this over here instead.)

I have been at another departmental party. I have had three large drinks, and I am feeling rather mellow. We have been watching "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and now we have resorted to the History Channel because there's nothing better on.

I also seem to have nothing to say, so I guess I'm going to talk about gifts; I haven't done that yet this year. I got a gift today - it was a gift card, as I expected because I knew that our department's only guy had my name. (Normally, we keep that a secret. You know who you're buying a gift for, naturally, but not who's buying one for you. But I do the drawing so there's no real way to keep that a secret from me!) I gave a gift card to the person whose name I had, too, because that's what she asked for. And it was **all** she asked for. We have a little form that we've been using for years, where you say, Yes, I want to participate in the gift exchange, and you give some suggestions. It makes things much less stressful. Although the gift cards have gotten so prevalent that I'm beginning to think we should just exchange gift cards.

I need to make a list of the gifts I have, anyway, because I honestly have very little idea what all I have, especially for Rob. So here goes.

Maybe I should explain first that Rob loves books about ghosts. That's his favorite bedtime reading. (I know, I think it's kinda weird too.) So that's the reason for all those books. I might save one of them for his birthday, which is in late January. The ghost books are almost all published by small presses and used to be really hard to find before Amazon came along.

**Stuff for Rob:**
Oldest Ghosts (this one is about St. Augustine, I think)
Dawn of the Dead (the new one - Unrated Director's Cut)
Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator (this is the old one, because the FS3 won't play on our crappy computer and he already has FS2)
Adirondack Ghosts
2 MST3K movies: Hellcats and Beginning of the End
Windy City Ghosts II
Deathdream (DVD)

I also ordered him a couple more things this week, which I hope will show up on time: a pair of Land's End chinos and a pair of fancy running shorts. (If not, well, I can save them for his birthday!)

**for Mom:**
blue broken china heart pendant
a blue and white trivet (do I need to say that she loves blue & white?)
and then she's getting that other pendant that I won at the auction this week

Both dads are getting DVDs/videotapes (Rob's parents only have a VCR) - my dad's is D-Day: the Untold Story, which I ordered from the History Channel, and Rob's dad is getting the new version of The Alamo. Rob's mom is getting a piece of marcasite jewelry that she said she liked, and Rob's Aunt Betty is getting a nice gift set of Claire Burke candles and potpourri that I found at Marshall's. My sister is getting a green pottery candlestick that I found at Pier 1, and maybe something else yet to be bought, I haven't decided about that. My nephew (who is almost 14) is getting a check, and Mom's boyfriend (who is older, and has become sort of my surrogate grandfather) always gets a gift card from Wal-Mart, because that's what he likes.

I also have some stuff I bought for myself. I know that's sort of weird, but that's more or less how we always do it - I either tell Rob what I want or buy it myself, for my big present. I don't see any point in making him guess! Then he goes and gets me a couple of smaller surprise things. This year he had asked me what I wanted for Christmas the week before the quilt show, and at the quilt show I saw something I really wanted and had been putting off buying for a long time: quilt-design software. It's rather expensive (about $100) or I would have had it a long time ago. I also bought a bottle of (fairly inexpensive) perfume at Ulta last week - it's Demeter Wet Garden - when I went to get the gift card for my co-worker. The perfume is something I've been wanting for months, too.

I have not wrapped a single gift, except for the ones I gave today, the gift card and the little photoholders I gave everybody (which I gave in those decorated see-through bags with some candy thrown in). I will probably do the rest at the last minute.