Ought to.

[mellicious]

I should be wrapping gifts and/or addressing cards - I am very behind on both. Probably the cards are more important, but we got a bunch of packages in the mail today and I have gifts on the brain, more. One of the packages was the one from The Land of Nod (which is actually the children's division of Crate and Barrel, I understand) - I am very glad those came because one was not a Christmas gift, it was a baby gift for my co-worker whose shower is tomorrow. (Cool retro bibs - and it better be a girl as advertised because I bought the flowered ones.... although I don't suppose the baby cares, come to that. But the mom might!) I also got an art jar for my 7-year-old cousin and a purple tutu - Rob corrected me on this, it's actually lavender - for the little one. I hope it's not impossibly girly but I thought it was really cute. I have my girly moments too, you know.

Oh, speaking of Crate and Barrel - that gift-wrap that I was complaining the other day was expensive? Is the most. beautiful. gift wrap ever. Seriously. I bought the ribbon and the little tree gift tags and I'm not even putting bows on the wrapped gifts, they don't need it. (There's red, too, but I don't think it could possibly come out as pretty as the green.)

(Later)

I just went and wrapped a whole lot of gifts, so I feel better about that. Not in the pretty green paper, but just mostly in bags, which is how I almost always wrap my presents, and have for years. It's faster, it still looks good, and the bags are reusable, which I like both because it's "green" and because it saves money in the long run - although this is not as much of a concern for me now as it was back 15 years or so ago when I first started doing this. Back then, money was always oh-so-tight and it was a gigantic concern.


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Y'know, it's funny. I am always saying I ought to be doing this, and I ought to be doing that, but that's mostly because I am not really good about doing the things I ought to do - or even the things I want to do, like sending cards. My sister, on the other hand, has done the things she was "supposed" to do (or at least that's what she thought) for all of her life, up 'til the last couple of years, and now apparently she's in full-blown rebellion against doing what she thinks she ought to do - or something like that. It's very hard to figure out what's going on, exactly, because of the way she attempts to communicate. I got a couple of extremely long e-mails from her today, the gist of which was, she's not coming for Christmas. She kept talking about "negative people" - how she doesn't want to be around these negative people, and while I'm pretty sure I know who she is talking about.... near as I can figure out, what she really means is that she's afraid those people will remind her of things she doesn't want to be reminded of. And it has to be things she also thinks she ought to have done, or she wouldn't be so afraid of them. She is running scared in a big way, that's what I think.

(Sorry to be sort of opaque about what I'm talking about, exactly, but I don't think I want to put that down in black and white. If you really are dying to know, you could probably go back and read the archives from a year or so, and it should become clearer. At least, I think it should. I'm not going back to read all that to see, because it's too depressing.)

Comments

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

I have always loved Crate and Barrel's wrapping paper! Going all the way back to the ear;y 80s, it was the only paper I would use. Every year I'd make the trek into Harvard Square (I think that's their original store?) and pick from their selection. Nice quality, always pretty, kind of expensive, but I didn't care.

I think I stopped using it when I started driving. That kind of sucks now that I think about it! Maybe I'll make a special pilgrimage this year. Anyway, yours is very pretty...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't know, that red looks pretty gorgeous. I wouldn't bet against it.

My husband's brother isn't coming for Christmas, either, but he is avoiding communicating about it as much as possible, so I have no idea whether it involves negative people, positive incentive elsewhere, or something else completely.