I so wanted to get to bed before 11 tonight. Sigh.
It’s all my fault, really. I am the world’s worst at keeping gifts a secret. (You know how your family has that one thing about you that they always rib you about and have an endless supply of embarrassing stories about? This is mine.) Today may have set a new record for the shortest amount of time between buying a gift and then making the recipient open said gift.
Auggie and I bought the newly-remastered Slanted and Enchanted CD and Slow Century DVD for Tim at approximately 1:30 this afternoon, and by 10:30, I had convinced him to open it. This was also approximately 10 minutes after I had finished wrapping it. Is that sad? Is my ego so fragile that I can’t handle not knowing that someone likes my gift? Really likes it?
Sure, I can go off spouting double negatives with no fear of recrimination, but I can’t go half a day without knowing that my husband totally loves the new releases by his all-time, number-one, most favorite band. Again, sigh.
You’re probably thinking, ‘She just wants him to open her present so she can open his.’ But you’re wrong. OK, maybe only a little wrong. Tim wrapped three presents for me over the course of the evening and I must admit that I was dying to know what they were. But no sooner were they being warmed under the glow of our wee Christmas tree, than they were snatched away to be de-wrapped by the likes of me.
My husband is very thoughtful.
On a completely different topic, I am having a bit of an ethical dilemma. My first ethical dilemma of the week was solved this morning, and involved giving a gift basket of Budweiser, peanuts and various peppermint candies (to cover up the beer-breath, perhaps?) to our garbage men/trash collectors/sanitation engineers/whatever they’re going by these days. When I saw the gift basket at the grocery last week, I instantly thought my garbage-men-gift-giving prayers had been answered. I mean, I hate to stereotype here (i.e., big stereotype coming up here), but c’mon! Garbage men! Beer! Peanuts! Need I say more?
Once the basket was purchased, however, (and did I notice that I was not carded, oh you bet I noticed. And then wished that they sold these when I was back in college and underage, because surely she didn’t card me because she just didn’t notice that the gift basket contained alcohol, not because I look all of my 28 years.) Where were we? Oh yes, the ethical dilemma. I started to worry about whether one of the garbage men was a recovering alcoholic and my insensitive and stereotypical view of garbage men (although true in his case) would lead to his falling off the wagon and resuming his boozy ways. I gave it to him anyway. There’s always AA, right?
Anyway, back to Ethical Dilemma #2. I’ve been trying to think of something to get our mail carrier for Christmas as well. (Dude, I didn’t even stop to think about if he was Jewish. Or Muslim. I am an insensitive lout. Crap.) When we were at church last Sunday, the youth group was selling those jars of layered cookie dough ingredients and I thought, ‘Eureka! This is perfect for our mail carrier! And it only costs five bucks!’ (Last year, I went all-out and bought Woody the Mail Carrier a Hickory Farms gift box deal. Yeah, I know. I rock. Anyway, turns out that was a good thing because Woody retired this year. I hope. Actually, I don’t really know what happened to Woody at all. Hope you’re A-OK there, Woody!) Well, the jar has a sticker on the top of it with a religious message. It’s not anything like, ‘Hey, you’re going straight to hell if you don’t join our church! Enjoy the cookies, heathen!’ Just a little phrase about the baby Jesus or something. (Yes, I could quote it for you here, but it’s way across the room and I’m not getting out of bed right now to go see what it says exactly, so quit whining.)
My dilemma is this: Is it a violation of the separation of church and state to give my United States Postal Service carrier a jar of cookie dough makings with a religious message on it? Goodness knows that I don’t want any trouble with the Postmaster General.
We leave for my mother’s house tomorrow, friends, where we will partake of the free baby-sitting and go see the new Lord of the Rings movie. So this is probably it until after the holiday.
Have some egg nog. You deserve it. Merry Christmas!