December 23rd, 2005 - The best Christmas gift
My inlaws, the ones I was having trouble finding gifts for, came up with the BEST Christmas gift for me: They gave a donation to my favorite charity, The Elephant Sanctuary! I have forgotten the conversation, but apparently this summer I told my MIL that a donation to them would be a perfect gift for me. She remembered that 5 months later woohoo!!!
I have to admit: When their box of gifts came last week, I off-handedly said something to Eric about how they obviously loved him and Maggie more because I only had one gift that had all our names on it. He said something about how this wasn’t the only box coming. Whatever his exact words were, I took it to mean another box of gifts would come later. So I’ve faithfully checked the front porch when I come home every day (we only use the porch in the mornign to get the paper, so I check it each day in the afternoon if we’re expecting a package). A couple times, Eric has commented that their gift to me would be one I would absolutely positively adore. My MIL frequently buys me clothes with Winnie the Pooh characters on them (I adore Piglet), so I guessed it was another sweatshirt or such. To my regret, as I have too many clothes and since I prefer to wear only green, it was too much to hope they had found it in green. I did think Eric’s enthusiasm about the gift was a bit much for a Pooh item, however. But I couldn’t think of anything else they knew I’d adore (and I’d not mentioned wanting a Dyson any time recently!).
Yesterday, when I came home with the mail, he asked, “Anything special in the mail?” And I said, “No.” “Oh, my parents are getting worried because confirmation of your gift was supposed to arrive.” “Well, there’s a large envelope from The Elephant Sanctuary” a brief thought of a donation comes to mind “but I just sent a donation and it’s just a receipt for that.” His reply was something non-comittal but implied that indeed that wasn’t what he expected. But, my curiousity piqued, I opened it before going up to change my clothes. To my delight, it was indeed my Christmas gift! I was soooo surprised!!!! And utterly delighted. A perfect gift that I would adore, just as promised.
And nothing (except the thin sheet of paper acknowledging the gift) that I’ll have to store, wear, clean, dust, or do anything else with. A prefectly simple gift. I can even recycle the paper into my garden in the summer!