Christmas Gift Exchanges

Last year, my three grown up kids asked if they could swap names and do a Christmas gift exchange. It was so successful that they decided to it again this year.

We number fifteen now in our “immediate” family and that becomes a lot of individual Christmas presents to buy. We all have blended families so my kids and I have other “immediate” family circles on our Christmas list.

Believe me; the grandkids have done the math, and they may wish we hadn’t. They are kids, after all, and they love getting stuff. They may not like what their parents decided, but I applaud their solution.

As grandparents, HoneyBunch and I are not included in the name swap, but I have claimed myself the grandmother who always buys the grands a set of pajamas at Christmas. I might throw in a snuggly or a book, but I stay away from anything more expensive or complicated. I’ll leave that for Santa (their parents or the other grandparents) to buy. My present may not get oohs and aahs, but I want them to know I care for their needs and not their wants.

Everyone wrote their names on slips of paper, and to help their “Secret Santa” find them a gift, they listed three hobbies and three things they wanted that might cost $20 or less. The couples swapped names with each other and the seven swapped names also. I saw some sad faces, but we were adamant about setting a limit on the greed that comes with the season.

Everyone was supposed to keep who they chose a secret, but by the end of the day, the only one who hadn’t figured out who he had was the seventeen-month-old baby.

I prefer Christmas presents that represent the season – games or craft kits that involve the family and bring them closer. I also like gift exchanges with a theme or a common objective. I especially like inexpensive gift swaps where all you have to buy is a pair of cheerful, Christmas socks or a beautiful, new Christmas ornament, or where everyone shares dozens of freshly baked, homemade Christmas cookies.

Our writing critique group does a White Elephant Exchange with gently used books, and I have ended up with real treasures. The thought stays with me all year, and before I donate my old books to the nearby library, I keep one or two that might end up being my Christmas present at the next book exchange.

When I blogged on this last year (You might want to refer to the comments on an older blog dated October 29, 2012.), we had several other great suggestions.

One family exchanges dollar gifts. (Yes, gifts that cost ONE dollar.) Isn’t that intriguing? Another family donates to a college scholarship or a charity in each other’s names. It started as a present to their father who didn’t want more “stuff” around his house, and it became a tradition after he was gone.

Christmas is not about greed and avarice; it is about family and selflessness. It’s about spending happy and fun times with each other because at the end of the day, after every box has been unwrapped and opened, and the sparkle of the day is gone, the most precious gift we exchange with each other is love of family.

Happy Breastday to Me!

I gave myself a very special birthday present this year – I had surgery. Before you think it was to increase, decrease, or “lift” something, let me tell you it was not cosmetic (though I could probably use a few nips and tucks at my age; the infinite number of creams I buy OTC are not working their promised magic). About four or five months ago, I discovered a hard lump about the size of a large marble in my left armpit. I had been feeling small pangs of pain in my left chest for several months, but I figured it was just my turn to dance with heart disease. Everyone in my immediate family is diabetic and suffers from strokes or heart attacks, so I thought – here we go; my turn. I was going to tell my internist about the pangs during my next visit, so imagine my surprise when I discovered the lump. The Drama Queen in me immediately manifested herself – cancer, I thought. I have cancer. I searched some more and found that the texture on the left side of my left breast felt diffe

Teenagers: Stinky Little Extraterrestrials

Years ago, a skunk sprayed our yard during the night and the next morning I trekked out to my car to drive to work and unknowingly stepped into the oily residue. I tracked skunk stink into my Jeep and onto the carpet in my office, a room I shared with a kind and forgiving co-worker. It took a week or two and several large cans of Lysol and air freshener to get rid of the smell. Ever since my profound Close Encounter of a Second Kind (I never saw the skunk but it left evidence of its presence), I became a skunk expert. I learned the way of the skunk. My experience imprinted itself into my hippocampus and I acquired a heightened sense of smell. I can detect a skunk several miles away, outperforming a normal human nose that can only start to do the same at one mile. I have the same uncanny sense about adolescents. After 30-plus years of teaching teenagers and having raised three of my own, you might say, I have reached the Close Encounter level of a Fifth Kind: I have actually

Dating Challenged

I stink at dating – always have. I sputter. I hyperventilate. I fail miserably every time. I blame a pathetically underdeveloped gene that got little use before I married in my early twenties, then atrophied, gathering dust and rust, until I became single again in my fifties. I decided to use this defect to my advantage when I needed to do some investigative reporting a few years back. While on a newspaper writing assignment on Boomer-aged dating, I sacrificed my dignity and my vanity for the sake of the story (and I got several). Thank goodness, HoneyBunch saved me from all this when we married. (He comes up with the best dates.) I’ve decided I will “show you mine if you show me yours.” I will swap dating horror stories with you, but you have to promise to play along. The trick here is to tell about your worst date in 25 words or less. You must keep it clean and you cannot name names. Our little contest will run only this week and before my next blogger posting. Me

Lea PhelpsNovember 21, 2013 at 3:44 PM
Rachel. I really like this blog. I wish my family could put aside their differences and disdain for me and my rules and be more like yours.
Raquel Martina MartinezNovember 22, 2013 at 12:39 PM
My family has been through a lot. We haven't always and won't always get along but we try. God bless you, Lea.

Raquel Martina Martinez

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