True Christmas spirit

In My Humble Opinion
1

Yesterday I brought home a used computer that my oldest sister and I bought for Christmas for my middle sister and her family. They are as broke as it gets (newly married, three kids- youngest 5 months old) and had little or no hope at getting their own computer. My oldest neice (12) let it slip (not on purpose) that she is the only kid in her class that does not have a computer at home. (This is true- she goes to a private school that her natural father pays for.)

So yesterday I brought this bad-boy home. It’s used, but it’s a Dell Pentium 133 with 32 meg of Ram, 1.5gig hard drive, 2meg video ram, Soundblaster sound card, 56K modem, and CD ROM. I’ve been running it though the paces testing it out, and I called her yesterday to let her know I had it in house and it’s ready to rock. This thing is actually pretty smokin- it surfs the web at about the same pace as my laptop, and ran a Monopoly game I installed flawlessly (and that is a very graphic and sound intensive game)

We are not a very emotional family with one another, but she sounded like she was going to just break down and cry, she’s so happy. Now they can send e-mail, get on the net, do word processing and fax, and play with digital pics. It seems like the last “hurdle” that separated them from the rest of the world.

None of the rest of her family knows it’s coming, so it’s staying at my house until the Saturday before Christmas. I am so excited to give it to them, I don’t want to wait. Everytime I see it in my side room, all set up and running, I get all excited again, knowing this is going to be THE best gift they’ve had in ages. And it was MY idea!

So the point of this rambling post is this: I lost my job a few weeks ago, and this hasn’t been the best year (not the worst, but not the best). I was thinking “I don’t even feel like dealing with Christmas this year”. Now I’m so excited, you would think I was getting a new computer. Just knowing they will be thrilled by this has restored my Christmas sharing spirit. I’m gonna go make cookies.

Zette

2

My point was this:
What is THE gift that you’re giving this year? A big surprise? Something you searched long and hard for?
Tell me about it!

Zette

3

It’s going to be a tight Christmas at the Nipple household this year. My job is sort of up in the air (BIG meeting today at 10am pacific) and I don’t make much money to begin with. However, we’re spending Xmas together at home.

I believe we’re getting the kids, scooters, dolls, N64 and a variety of smaller gifts. we’ll be fine…and happy.

4

A few weeks ago, I stopped at a grocery store I haven’t been to for a long time, and they had a gift tree for the Christine Ann Center, a local domestic abuse shelter. You know, the type that has paper ornaments that you take and then return later with an appropriate gift to be donated. It got my attention because (1) Mr. Scarlett and I enjoy donating to good causes, and (2) long ago, I briefly worked with the guy who later killed Christine Ann, for whom the center is named, so I feel a certain pull toward it.

Anyway, the other cool thing was that, unlike other trees with ornaments that say, for example “Girl, 9” or “Boy, 6” (How the hell do you know what the kid wants?), this one had concrete suggestions: Monopoly game. Sidewalk chalk. Crayons and sketch pad. Basketball. What fun! A ready-made list!

I chose several ornaments that named gifts I thought would be fun to give, and then I hit the jackpot: “Jewelry.” I make jewelry! This will be fun, I thought.

I’ve bought several bags of inexpensive but interesting glass beads. Four necklace-and-earring sets are already done. I called the shelter and learned that they have 11 women at the shelter right now; adding a few to account for the holidays :frowning: means that at two sets per evening, I’ll have plenty of time to make one set for each resident. I’ll attach my “Handmade By” tags with a note that they were made specially for clients of the CAC, and that I hope they enjoy wearing them as much as I enjoyed making them. (Or something like that.)

I’m also hoping to make 60 pairs of earrings for the “out-of-shelter” clients who’ve already been relocated to their own new homes. And my friend’s daughter is making a pile of plastic beaded child bracelets for the little ones.

This project really has me excited. Knowing how many women are staying in abusive relationships because they haven’t found the strength to get out, I give the women in shelter a ton of credit. (No personal experience here, although we are keeping an eye on my sister’s marriage, just in case.) I hope that a handmade gift, made “just for you,” will convey some small sense of support and good wishes.

After ten years of marriage (and DINKhood), Mr. Scarlett and I are having more and more difficulty choosing gifts for each other. This kind of gift-giving is way more fun and rewarding!

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No gifts like that this year, but in '95 my sister and I decided that our parents needed an up-to-date portrait of the three of us to take back to the Czech Republic with them. Her co-worker’s husband is a semi-professional photographer, so we set up a November shoot in his backyard (lots of trees). The three of us bundled up in our snow-clothes, and had three rolls of film taken. It snowed that day, adding a nice touch. We picked the photo we thought showed our brother off best, had it professionally framed, and gave it to the parents for Christmas. I think both of them cried.

A nicely framed photo of someone they love is one of the best gifts you can give a person.

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Dear Ms. Zette:

You are doing a good thing, not the least of which is your contribution of energy, effort and expertise; an up-and-running computer loaded with appropriate software is so much more festive than a box of cold, distant hardware. You mentioned Monopoly–would you mind sharing what other kid games/educational stuff you’re including (the kids in my life happen to be 3, 5, 7 and 10)?

My special holiday project this year is a mail-order feast–Alaskan crabs, smoked oysters and scallops from Josephson’s in Astoria, Oregon; smoked salmon and caviar from Zabar’s; and bagels from H&H in New York. I’ll fix up a nice little spread with toast points, sour cream, chopped onions, hard boiled egg bits, cream cheese, drawn butter and champagne. Pretty materialistic compared to you and Scarlett67, but it does have that small element of personal effort which makes it more than just a purchase.

Happy Holidays!

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Great posts! I love the info about the abuse shelter- that’s an excellent idea. My friend’s mom is in a nursing home for physical rehab, and I am going to do something home-made for the folks on her floor. I may have my husband join me and put on a little guitar/flute concert for them! Wouldn’t that be nice?

Humble Servant: So far I have Monopoly and Quicken (for the grown-ups), and I got one of those 100 games CDs. Those are great- lots of variety- dice games, learning games, etc. I may get my neice one of those fashion software programs where you change your hair virtually, and I’m looking at a t-shirt transfer making program.

Zette

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Humble Servant, can we come over? I volunteer to wash dishes, and I’ll bring the ice. That feast sounds yummy and unique!

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Ours is also a computer, for my parents. The one they’ve got now has been around for seven or eight years and while they’ve put in more memory and updated a few things, I think it’s still running on the original processor. They keep talking about getting a new one, but things for the kids always seem to come up instead (sprained wrists, etc). We weren’t planning to go home for the holidays, but now we are so that we can see their reaction. :smiley: I can’t wait!

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I bought my mom a ticket to Paris. It’s always been her dream to go, but she could either not afford to go, or always had some reason not to. Now that her youngest child (yours truly) is finally out of the house and has a successful job, i figured this was the perfect way to say “thanks for everything”.

What’s really great is that now a) i didn’t think i’d be able to join her, but now it looks like i might, and b) my brother and his wife are also seriously considering going!

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Gee, I dunno. The cough [sub]property damage[/sub] cough evidenced in the SDMB party threads seems fairly spectacular. But, what the hey. Since you guys are such deserving good samaritans, I would be honored if you’d join our little feast. Champagne?

12

Just a guitar for my son, who asked for one last year (when he was just barely 2), and still remembers that he didn’t get it last year. He’s still young enough to be thrilled, even getting it a year ‘late’. Ah, the joys of a child who remembers EVERYTHING.

He picked out an engineering toy (‘build four friction-drive vehicles’) to give to the toys for tots program tomorrow night. And he knows it isn’t for him. (He says he gets to be Santa for someone else… don’t know if he really UNDERSTANDS that, but it is a start.)

If I can come for the christmas feast, y’all can come to our New Year’s Day feast - smoked salmon (dry style) from my sister in AK, caviar (whitefish for conservation sake), smoked oysters/clams/mussels, four varieties of onions, three varieties of olives, capers, pickels (little nifty ones), and about a dozen other things to jam in endless combinations onto gourmet crackers… all held on by cream cheese or cream cheese with garlic or pesto mixed in. Enough to stuff yourself with and not need a meal for the rest of the day. :slight_smile: Oh, and champagne! Much more fun than staying up all night, though I’ll be up half the night dancing anyway.

13

Well every year Chris and I go beyond our means with Christmas gifts. I can’t help it far more like to give than receive. The first thing we did was blast out whole paychecks on my neices when they came down for thanksgiving. Their dad hasn’t had much work as a landscaper the past few months, and we didn’t want them hanging around at grandma’s house all week. We tok them one day to Islands of Adventure( a roller coaster park) and then on the friday after thanksgiving we took them all over Orlando for shopping. we went to FAO Schwartz and we went out eat for lunch and dinner. It was a lot of fun.

As for my mom and father-in-law’s gifts we picked up two camcorders at Sears because they have THE OLDEST camcorders known to man and would never buy (or afford) new ones. We got a REALLY good deal on them so it isn’t breaking our backs…badly.

I’m so happy about those gifts. I know my parents will be ecstatic about them. My neices don’t really understand what we spent or what we sacrificed to be with them, but it was nice not having them stuffed at grandma’s house with their dad yelling at them the whole time.

I feel good about this Christmas. I love giving gifts.

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Wow, hedra, great minds think alike when it comes to feasts–seafood and champagne ;). Count me in. My grandmother always had oyster stew and brussels sprouts for New Year’s Day–may have to try that for my own family now.

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one of my favorites! :slight_smile: I’ve never had oyster stew, might want to try that…

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I just wanted to say that the true spirit of Christmas is the one that lasts all year long. Giving is something that needs to be done 24/7/365.