Save and Conquer

We had lots of family come to our house for Christmas. A little over a month ago my wife and I suggested to all adults to not give any presents to other adults that were store bought. Kids would still be eligible for store-bought toys within reason. Of course, spouses could and would go as crazy as they like in gift giving.

Most adults were good and stayed within the rules, but boy did our son get a lot of stuff. He had four periods of gifting. We went to visit some relatives last weekend, had a private family gathering Christmas morning with presents from Santa, and then had two main groups of relatives at the house through Christmas dinner. He also got a few pretty nice presents from neighbors, as well. I think the money spent on his presents will help keep retailers afloat this season.

One of the most inventive non-store-bought presents was a bag of “home made” dirt that we gave to my wife’s father. I previously wrote that my wife’s folks bought a house nearby. Her father likes to garden, so she came up with the idea to give him a seed germinating kit that is a container with a bunch of newspaper origami cups. Each cup gets filled with dirt and a seed. Once germinated, the origami cups get planted into his garden. The home-made dirt is a mix of potting soil that we already had with the first batch of compost.

I could not write about this any earlier or it might have spoiled the surprise.

I hope all readers had a Merry Christmas.

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