I am a *total* Christmas/Yule freak. I *love* giving prezzies. I love going out to shop to find either just the right gift or the makings of it. I love stopping while out to get a cookie & milk (for her) or coffee (me).
Don’t get me wrong – I like getting presents as much as the next person; but, finding/making the very thing that will make your loved one’s eyes light up? Yeah, that’s one of the best feelings in the world to me. It can be something complex that you crafted, a spendy sort of gift, a card with a poem that you wrote, a basket of their favorite cookie, a piece of fabric that you know they will love or a hug at just the right moment. And yeah, I know that you can do that sort of thing all year. But, its nice when alot of people are feeling that goodwill, as well.
I Santa’d for my neighbors growing up — wrapping presents & putting together toys — every year. That was my gift to them. It allowed them to spend more time with their kids & elderly parents. And, I got to spend more time with my Mom because she would usually come and help me wrap.*
I also LOVE the idea of Santa. I hope that Girlie keeps believing in him until she’s nine or ten. Even if she doesn’t really. We will set out cookies & a thermos of coffee for that jolly old elf this year, even though she is going to be at her Dad’s house. I will take pictures of her stocking Christmas Eve & then again on Christmas morning and send them to her (via her Dad’s cell phone) so that she will know that he showed up and dropped off goodies for her.
I am thinking seriously of having a holiday cookie baking/decorating thang in my house for all my friends & their kids (them what has ’em) sometime before I have to give up the ‘kins to her Dad. Maybe on/around the 14th or 15th of December.
*ponders*
* – yeah, my Mom is one of those people who has a Monk-like tendency to wrapping presents. All of her gifts are superbly, expertly wrapped. With fluttery, curley-que ribbons and matching tags. Its a *thing* with her.
The Process 
Even after nigh 13 years, you can still learn things about a person. 🙂
What’d you learn?
13 down (almost!) fifty yet to go!
We done Vegas for 11.
I’m still thinking the Virgin Islands for 13. Or hell, let’s all for plan to go to Hedo! *grinz & suchlike*
Something you did as a kid and why you did it. 🙂
Nope. I get you all to myself for our anniversary. I ain’t going on yours and DS’s, he don’t come on ours. 😛
I’m hip with white sandy beaches and coconut drinks. Let’s natter about it.
That’s be Nancy & Warren W., across the street neighbors from when I was a kid. You know how there’s always at least one *cool* set of grownups on your neighborhood street? WW and Nance was them on our street. They had their kids late in life – and the timing worked out that they had their kids right about when their parents moved in with them (age and illness made it a necessity). It got to be homily crazy over there.
I do remember you talking about them before. For some reason, when you said ‘my neighbors’, I thought you meant all of them. 🙂