Christmas and Surprises

Christmas was good particularly good to us this year!  In addition to getting to see most of both of our families (though we didn’t get to see 2 of my sisters who live out-of-state), I received such thoughtful gifts from my loved ones.  Once we returned from visiting family yesterday and opened our stockings, we built our first fire in the fireplace – and then realized the flue was closed and had to search for the hidden panel with the lever to open it.  Once we got all of that settled, we relaxed in front of the fire with Boof for 2 hours until it burned out.  It was a pretty fantastic ending to Christmas.

Lo and I usually don’t exchange much for gifts anymore because we tend to take a big vacation around the holidays – which we prefer to gifts.  It’s a little hard to buy for each other (and especially to surprise each other) because if we want something throughout the year, we just buy it ourselves.  It’s safe to say that we BOTH surprised each other this year, but in different ways.

Since we are going to Siesta Key, we decided we’d just fill each other’s stockings and not buy gifts for under the tree.  It’s possible that we didn’t so much decide as much as I said “you’re going to fill my stocking, right?”  I have a (huge) stocking that my mom knitted for me (and one for all of my sisters) when she had a knitting machine – probably when I was 4 or 5.  It’s sweater-like with my name and a teddy bear on it and you can fit a heck of a lot in it since it stretches so much.  My parents would fill our stockings to the brim and we were allowed to come downstairs and open our stockings on Christmas morning before they got out of bed and we could open gifts.  Our stockings always contained a few little gifts, like jewelry, perfume, makeup, or whatever was age appropriate for us – plus candy and some sort of fruit.  It gave us something to do while they got a little extra sleep – prepping for Christmas morning for 6 kids couldn’t have been easy and there was usually some last-minute major house project they were trying to finish up on Christmas Eve every year.

Since we have a fireplace this year in our new house, I ordered Lo a personalized stocking from Personal Creations when there was a Living Social deal – so it only ended up costing about $12.  It’s actually really nice and thick, so I’m pretty impressed for that price, considering personalized sweater stockings on some other sites and etsy were $45+.  We also ordered one for Boof from Café Press – I think it was around $5 – and it’s just made out of felt, so it’s not terrible sturdy or high quality…but she’s a dog and she doesn’t care – all she wants are the treats inside.  I also picked up some stocking hangers at the Goodwill when I was there looking for sweaters for an ugly sweater party.  I think they were $2 each and while they could use some paint touch-ups, they are solid wood and hand painted and there were 3 of them, so it seemed like a good enough deal.

Lo gets a little stressed out about buying gifts, so I kept reassuring him that it could just be stupid (but useful) stuff.  I think I even said “you can just even put functional stuff it in – you could put a box of tampons in there and I’d be happy”.  Thinking back, that’s probably an exaggeration.  I’m glad he didn’t do that.

I had decided to do 12 days of Christmas for him this year after reading about that idea on a few different blogs.  I know the 12 days are technically after Christmas, but that would have been harder since we’d be out-of-town for some of those days.  I’ll blog about the 12 days soon, but basically, I started on December 13 by giving him 1 handmade ornament featuring an impression of our house key and the date that we bought our house this year – and ended with a 12 pack of Christmas Ale dressed as reindeer on the 24^th.  He was very surprised by this whole project (and somewhat confused).  I would hide the gifts around the house each day and when he would find them he be like “what? I don’t know what’s going on!” – and then thank me of course.  I know that he appreciated it, but he keep saying – “I don’t have 12 things to put in your stocking and you’ve already given me 30 (or whatever) gifts”.  I told him that it didn’t matter what he got or how much we spent on each other – it wasn’t about that.  Plus most of the gifts that I bought for him were very practical gifts that he would have bought himself (boxers, toiletries, etc), so it wasn’t like I was spending a ton of money.  And I pointed out that since I was giving him so many before Christmas, I wasn’t going to have a ton to put in his stocking anyway.

So on to Christmas day – we didn’t open our stockings until we returned from visiting his family (mostly because I don’t like to get out of bed in the morning).  After opening our stockings, I can’t believe he didn’t wake me up to do our stockings – excited to give me all of the awesome presents that he picked.  I can tell that he put a ton of thought into the stuff he picked for me – so much so, that I feel bad that I didn’t do better with his stocking!  He got me Penguin mints (that they used to sell at my college – they are caffeinated peppermints that are kind of hard to find), Hawaiian chocolate covered macadamia nuts, Hawaiian spice mix (we are kind of obsessed with Hawaii), a Blue Jackets hat (because someday there will be hockey again), a workout headband that I wanted, a cute owl ornament, and few other things that he knew I wanted or that were on my Amazon wish list, and then this –at the bottom of my stocking:

I was shocked.  This is a ring I’ve been drooling over for a few years from Amazon.  It reminds me of an onyx ring my mom used to wear to church when I was little – but much nicer since hers was costume jewelry from Avon.  I asked her about the ring awhile back and she thought she gave it away because it was just costume jewelry and didn’t fit over her knuckles anymore.  I was disappointed because I would have loved to have it, but she ended up finding it and giving it to me!  Since discovering it, I’ve always had this onyx and diamond ring on my wish list, but had no expectation of ever getting it since it is very pricey compared to what I’m usually okay with spending on jewelry.  I figured if I ever got it, it would be for a big anniversary or as a push present or something (he’s not convinced that push presents are a real thing, but I suspect Kelley will make sure he knows that they are real when it comes time for that. If I give up wine and my body for over 9 months, I should get something!).

The ring only came in one size (7), so it’s too big for most of my fingers, but since it’s white gold it can be resized.  I don’t think I’ll get it permanently resized for my right ring finger because if my finger size changes after having kids (I totally expect not-so-pleasant changes with my body after kids), I don’t want to have to get it made bigger later.  I’m just going to buy one of those clear plastic ring guards that slip over the back of the ring to keep it tight on my finger for now.

In addition to Lo’s fantastic gifts, I got an onyx and diamond pendent necklace from my mom (um…how perfect it that?!) along with some other great stuff; a stocking full of fun stuff from Lo’s mom and dad including a ring holder (perfect again for my new ring), a silver and black watch (which matches the onyx jewelry), gloves, Pj’s and other fun things; a waterproof case for my nook and an OSU scarf from my BIL’s girlfriend in the gift exchange; and baskets with lots of fun goodies from my sisters.  I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the generosity of everyone this Christmas – these gifts will always make me think of the people who gave them to me.  And we haven’t even exchanged gifts with Chuck and Kelley yet – and she always nails gifts that she gives.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting on a portion of the gifts that I was having made for everyone on my side of the family and a few friends. I was disappointed that they didn’t arrive when they were supposed to before Christmas, but I’ll just mail them to everyone when they make it – HOPEFULLY in the next day or two.

And writing this reminds me…I still have something that I forgot to put in Lo’s stocking and forgot to give to him last night after I remembered.  Do you always find gifts that you meant to give after the holidays?  I usually do because I buy things throughout the year and then stash them places.  I really need to come up with one place to stash gifts…

Gratuitous Boof photo: she really loved her new bone – the ends twist off and you can add treat discs that are really hard to chew off.  We love it too becuase it has bristles that help clean her teeth while she tries to get the treat.  She has BAD breath, so she needs the brushing.