Showing posts with label Christmas Fruit Arrangements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas Fruit Arrangements. Show all posts

Surprising Mom on Christmas, It’s Harder than It Sounds

5:12 AM

Around Christmas time you hear most people call out ‘Merry Christmas’ to each other. We do that too, when we’re outside. In the house, we constantly keep reminding each other to act natural and look inconspicuous, like we have nothing to hide. That’s because we have a seriously shrewd mother. And surprising our mom with Christmas gifts is hard.

As children she always hid our Christmas holiday gifts and we didn’t know until Christmas day what we were going to get. If anyone was lucky, they’d have a faint idea of one gift but that’s the closest we ever got. And our Christmas gifts were always great. Mom not only knew what we wanted, but she also managed to smuggle it in the house and wrap it with out us so much as seeing the corner of a box. So when we grew up and started college or jobs, we thought it was only fair we get the world’s best most unique Christmas gifts for mom, and not let her find out about them till Christmas day. Oh yeah, I’m talking major payback time for mommy. So while we plan, purchase and wrap mom’s Christmas gifts, we try to be as subtle as possible.

But mom knows, mom always knows. We’ve tried all sorts of headquarters for our ‘Surprise Mom on Christmas’ plan, our house, my sister’s apartment, my brother’s place, my place, the beach, the bar. Sometimes I think mom must at some point have worked for the FBI. Luck and common sense aren’t exactly on our side either. Last year we ordered some Christmas gift baskets and one of them was for mom. There was a mix up and they delivered it to our house instead of my place. So basically mom received the delivery of her own Christmas gift. She still acted surprise though. The year before that, my brother called my dad and left him a long message on the answering machine. The message was entirely about mom’s Christmas gifts. He conveniently forgot that our parents live in the same house. Mom heard the message before dad did. In the years before that, mom has one way or the other managed to stumble upon our Christmas gifts for her. The sad part is she doesn’t even try to find out what her Christmas gifts are and she still finds them. We are lame at keeping Christmas gifts a secret. So this year, my mom already knows about the necklace my sister is getting for her and the coat my brother got for her. I’m getting her a fruit bouquet that I ordered online. Mom doesn’t know about it yet, I think It doesn’t need to be wrapped and it will arrive a day before Christmas. I change the password on my computer every day now. I hope I can keep it a secret from my mom till Christmas.

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Christmas Gifts For The New Mother

4:59 AM

Last year my friend and neighbor had a baby in December. Coincidently she had it the same day as her own birthday. So now Mom and baby boy share birthdays. I remember the days after she had her baby.

Since it was December, everyone was gearing up for the big Christmas holiday. They had been shopping for Christmas gifts mostly and with the arrival of the baby, everyone started bringing over balloons and flowers for the new mother. The flowers weren’t allowed in case the baby was allergic so my friend’s hospital room and then her living and bedroom were steadily filled with those shiny helium balloons. Around Christmas finding unique Christmas gifts is hard enough, finding something for a new born baby was harder. I tried to find something online that would be appropriate for both Christmas and for a new mother but the websites and store shelves all had Christmas holiday gifts but nothing to befit the occasion.

I knew if I looked specifically for baby gifts, I’d find them, but it was the baby’s first Christmas in his new home and it was my friend’s first Christmas as a mommy. I wanted something that would say congrats on your baby and Merry Christmas. There aren’t a lot of Christmas gifts out there that say that. I know flowers would have done great but we were all being careful around the baby who wasn’t even a month old yet. In my search for a gift for my friend I found a beautiful fruit bouquet. It was fruit cut like flowers and dipped in chocolate. I found the perfect bouquet for my friend. And I also found these adorable reindeer socks for the baby with little jingle bells on them. My friend absolutely loved both the gifts.

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Cheering Up The Boss On Christmas

4:52 AM

I’m one of those fortunate people who have a really great boss. I mean the guy literally remembers’ everyone’s birthdays! He knows if someone’s mother is sick and will ask about her health. He’ll know who just had a baby and ask how the wife is doing. He works us to the bone, but the work gets done because he has such a great attitude with us.

I think the formula behind it is simple. As long as our boss is happy and confident in us, we feel like everything is going great. So this Christmas is beginning to look like a real bummer at work. My boss is not well. He had surgery and although he’s back in the office, the surgery, medicine and drugs have made him down right miserable. We all can’t wait for him to get back to his jolly old self. It’s a bit funny you know; everyday someone will go in and try to cheer him up. We’ve brought him about five Christmas fruit baskets so far. When he yells at us and tells us to get back to work, we don’t mind. He’s been a great boss all these years, what’s a little crankiness? He’ll get back in to the Christmas spirit soon. He usually starts the secret Santa thing. He loves buying and receiving Christmas gifts, so his mood is going to get better as December progresses.

So far the number of people who have been thrown out of his office is six; I’m going tomorrow with a few Christmas gifts for him from the whole office. I mean it’s just a little post surgery misery, and Christmas holiday gifts can cure that. One of the unique Christmas gifts I’ll be taking for him tomorrow is a fruit bouquet. About five of us pitched in to buy it for our boss and I know it’ll really improve his mood. Surgery or no surgery, fresh fruit with chocolate sauce can melt anyone.

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A Great Christmas Gift For The Picky Chocolate Lover

4:40 AM

I seriously love chocolate. I know everyone thinks stuff like the discovery of fire, and inventing the wheel is huge, but I think the people who found cocoa beans deserve a Nobel Prize too. I mean one of the best things about the holidays is that people send chocolate like nuts! I get lots and lots of chocolate around Christmas. In case I feel like I haven’t received enough chocolate I’ll go out and buy myself some.

I guess it’s easy to guess which Christmas gifts are my favorite, chocolate ones! I mean I like the other stuff too, but I just prefer that people get me Christmas gift baskets full of something chocolaty instead of Christmas gift baskets with cheese in them. I mean hello, I’m not a mouse you know! Since I like chocolate so much, I also gift a lot of chocolate. Most of my Christmas holiday gifts are chocolate gifts. And while I graciously accept any and all kinds of chocolate stuff, my sister, who is just as much of a chocolate fanatic as I am, is absolutely picky! In fact, she’s practically a snob to most chocolates. Getting her unique Christmas gifts is hard, there are only a few select types of chocolates she’ll eat and I want her gift to be a surprise. This year I’m going to deviate a bit from an all chocolate gift. I’m buying a fruit bouquet for her, it comes with chocolate sauce, the fruit is dipped in chocolate and I think she’ll absolutely love it. I’d like to see her pass over the fresh fruit with chocolate. I know she won’t be able to and if she does, I’ll accept a refund.

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The Teenage Mind At Christmas Time

5:40 AM

I am the mother of two teenagers. I see my kids in the morning when they’re chugging down their breakfast, I see the top of their heads as I drive them to school and they're on their cell phones tweeting away about God knows what and we occasionally run into each other near the TV set.

All of this changes completely around Christmas time. My kids will deliberately walk into the kitchen while I’m cooking and hold long, loud and pointed conversations with their friends on the phone about their Christmas gifts. What they want, what they really want and what they can’t live without. Basically they’re trying to tell me what Christmas holiday gifts to get them, and the order of preference. For kids who avoid the kitchen like the plague, and whose fingers are still typing away at imaginary keyboards in their sleep, they make way too many calls in my kitchen. You’d think they’d have realized by now that I don’t ever get them the stuff they ‘can’t live without’. It’s too ridiculously extravagant and expensive. I just don’t think teenagers need that kind of stuff.

You could literally feed a third world country for a month for the price of those designer bags or cell phones. I never thought it would be this hard to teach my kid humility. I only get them the Christmas gifts they want and not the ones they ‘can’t live without’. If they can’t live without things like handbags and digital camera, they have bigger things to worry about. Hopefully one day they will learn to appreciate unique Christmas gifts for the sentiments they’re given with and not the price tags they carried. I think the problem is they don’t really know what they want. The TV tells them what to buy. I’ve been buying Christmas gifts for my kids for years now. They love everything they get and no one can say they didn’t get the one present they couldn’t live without. My daughter even loves the Christmas gift baskets I buy. While the whole wide world is out there telling my daughter to buy torn jeans and charm bracelets, I’m introducing her to more wholesome gifts like the fruits for Christmas. I’ve received Christmas Fruits from my mother for many years now and I really cherish the gift. It’s one gift I know my daughter will absolutely love.

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Christmas Gift Surprise; I Will Have the Last Laugh!

5:20 AM

Last year I spent Christmas at my sister’s house. She has three kids aged between three and ten. And those kids are fast not to mention oddly squishy. They can crawl under and into just about anything when they’re looking for the Christmas gifts. So last year when I arrived at my sister’s place I was already in stealth mode. For those of you not familiar with the Hit man Game, stealth mode is basically me sneaking around my sister’s house trying to hide something. That something would be Christmas gifts.

I moved into the house when the kids were out playing and my sister helped me hide my Christmas holiday gifts. This wasn’t easy because all the good places were already housing my sister’s Christmas gifts for her family. I actually had to hide some of my smaller Christmas gifts under a loose floor board in the attic. Then there were the Christmas gifts waiting to be wrapped. They included most of my Christmas gifts for my sister so she found out what I was getting her. All surprise was instantly killed and I realized that my hours of shopping for unique Christmas gifts for everyone would amount to nothing when it came to my sister’s gift.

I suspect she even took the one gift I had managed to wrap and shook it to get an idea of what’s inside. Brought me memories of kindergarten, my teacher used to tell us it was very rude to shake a gift before opening it. The house looked more like ‘Operation hides Christmas gifts’ than anything. What I didn’t like was the fact that none of my gifts for my sister would be a surprise. There was only one way around it; super stealth mode (not featured in hit man). I went online and searched for something that could be delivered to my sister’s doorstep as close to Christmas as possible. It had to be something that didn’t need wrapping. There were a lot of Christmas gift baskets out there but they would deliver at least a week before Christmas and the wicker baskets were too big to hide anywhere. I finally stumbled on to these fruit bouquets. They were available in a lot of sizes. They were pretty unique and beautiful to look at. I ordered the small size and asked a neighbor if she’d store it for just one night. Everything worked out! My sister couldn’t close her surprised mouth! She absolutely loved the gift.

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Christmas Fruit Baskets: An early Christmas gift for my three year old

5:16 AM

Last year I was baking some Christmas cookies and watching my three year old play. I was momentarily distracted when I had to answer the door. When I came back into the kitchen, my three year old had snuck over to the counter, climbed a chair, by passed the cookie jar and found one of his Christmas gifts.

When I cam back to the kitchen he was sitting on the floor peeling the wrapping off. I was absolutely shocked. I had hid it behind the cookie jar for the very reason that he’d be more interested in the cookies than what was behind the cookies, should he ever manage to reach either one of them. So as I stood in the kitchen in utter amazement, my son continued to peel away the wrapping. He was only three and there are just so many things you can say to a three year old.

I took the gift from him and hid it again. He didn’t cry about not being able to open an early Christmas gift and I thought he was ashamed at being caught sneaking early Christmas holiday gifts. I sat him down on the sofa and asked him in a very reasonable voice if he really thought his Christmas gifts would make him just as happy if they weren’t opened on Christmas day. His answer left me speechless. He said I should let him open one or two and we could both find out if he was happier that way! I was actually shocked that an answer like that had come out of a three old, my three old! I tried to reason with him, I told him how hard mommy tries to find unique Christmas gifts for him and that she wants to give him lots of nice surprises on Christmas day. He told me I was trying to concentrate his happiness.

We talked for an hour and it ended with me telling him it was wrong to open Christmas gifts before Christmas day. Two days later I received two Christmas gift baskets from neighbors and I was just going through them when my three year old asks me ‘Mommy, will that present make you happy even if you’re not opening it on Christmas day?’ rats! I tried to explain to him that they were early Christmas gifts. He said he’d like to trade all his Christmas day gifts for early Christmas gifts. I can’t believe he hasn’t even started school yet. After another hour of discussion I decided he could have an early Christmas gift like mine. I thought fruit baskets for Christmas would make a nice early Christmas gift and I found these wonderful edible Christmas gifts made of fruit, they were called fruit bouquets I ordered him one. It had fruit cut like flowers and dipped in chocolate. He graciously shared it with me and told me he was very happy with an early Christmas gift and to ‘keep ‘um coming’

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Back To The Realities of Christmas Gift Shopping

9:55 PM

Christmas is in twenty four days, that is less than a month and surprisingly (not really), there is still unfinished Christmas shopping. I still have tons and tons of Christmas Gifts to buy. I read somewhere that people mostly begin shopping for Christmas gifts after thanksgiving. Since I had already bought some gifts before thanksgiving, I was definitely feeling smug. But all smugness is now gone, it’s December! Now that there is the added pressure of less time, I realize I haven’t in any seriousness started my Christmas Shopping. On top of all that, my list actually got longer because I missed a few people at work.

It’s beginning to turn into another stressful Christmas. The stores have run out of my favorite metallic wrapping paper. I love that stuff so much, it makes ordinary stuff look extraordinary. It comes in handy if in a serious time crunch I don’t manage to find unique Christmas gifts for some people. I just wrap the ordinary Christmas holiday gifts in metallic paper. People look at the wrapping and are flattered.

Something I’ll always be grateful for is Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I was wondering if I should have bought my Christmas gift baskets earlier but I came across some great discounts on Cyber Monday so I’ll be saving a ton. In fact, I’d say Cyber Monday made it a bit easier for me to find some really Unique Christmas gifts. I’m going with my usual chocolate fruit for the people at work; it’s the only way I’ll manage to stay in budget.

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I’m Not For The Cheesy Christmas Gift Baskets

4:57 AM

It’s getting really close to Christmas now and people have rolled up their sleeves to get down and dirty with the Christmas shopping. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are coming up. I’m still looking for some new Christmas gift baskets, I need something really original. Thankfully a lot of stores have rolled out their Christmas specials so it’s getting easier to narrow down the choice.

I have almost decided which basket I’m going to buy but I’m still looking around to see what new ideas for Christmas gift baskets are going around these days. And I found something new, Cheese baskets! I mean seriously. Are these people kidding? Baskets full of cheese? That’s like here, a smelly Christmas gift basket. It sounds like something I’d get for Mickey Mouse and since he’s not on my Christmas list I’m not buying one. Understandably people are found of cheese.

I mean if it weren’t for cheese we couldn’t eat our crackers and there wouldn’t be any cheese pizza. But baskets full of cheese are not my idea of unique Christmas gifts. I read somewhere that food items are going to be really popular Christmas Holiday gifts this year, maybe that’s what led to these cheese baskets. But there are better foods to put in Christmas gift baskets. People may like eating cheese but I don’t know how many will appreciate a whole basket full showing up in their Christmas gifts. It’s better if you just get Christmas fruit baskets. They come with chocolate. I’d like to see cheese top that!

So while I support innovation and all that stuff, I think people need to put a little more thought into what they decide to make into Christmas gift baskets.

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The True Value Of Christmas Gifts

4:24 AM

I’ve discovered that there is a science behind gift giving on Christmas. You can’t just walk into a store or browse to a website, say ‘Hey the guy across the street would really like this’ and make your purchase. Apparently people all over the world buy Christmas gifts this way, but it’s wrong! Or so I’ve read in an article based on some book that’s been published by Princeton Publishing Press.

Turns out there is this thing called Value and satisfaction per dollar. Seriously? Because buying Christmas gifts for Mom, Dad, your brother, sister, husband, kids, grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, people at work, and people in your neighborhood wasn’t hard enough. Now you need to stop and think about satisfaction per dollar. Now when we look for Christmas gifts online, we should Google Unique Christmas Gifts with high satisfaction per dollar. I kind of always thought it was the thought that counts. I disagree with the article, mostly because it ignores sentimental value of Christmas Gifts. I get my mom Christmas gift baskets.

She loves those things. I don’t really care how much I pay for them. I buy them because I know my mom will like them. I don’t know if my mom ever goes poking around to see how much I spent on her Christmas Holiday Gifts, but I spend generously. It doesn’t matter what the value is. People don’t spend hours online and days dragging themselves through malls to find something that says, “I bought a lot of satisfaction per dollar for you. Merry Christmas” they go looking for Unique Christmas gifts because they want to get something the receiver will like. If people actually have time to go find out how much their Christmas Holiday Gifts cost, or what they are worth in monetary terms to them, then I don’t know what the world is coming to.

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Truly Giving Christmas Gifts

3:39 AM

Around Christmas time, a lot of charities go into over drive. They work all year round and Christmas is show time for them. We have several charities working in our locality and we try and contribute to as many as we can and not just in monetary terms. We put in a lot of time and help out with the arrangements. For a few years, the charities have been teaming up around Christmas. They divide the work and that way they have more funds for different things. One charity takes over Christmas dinner, another takes over the Christmas gifts for the kids. Someone else provides for Christmas trees. They all come together to give the under privileged a better Christmas.

When people see the charities working together like this, it makes them want to contribute more. A lot more people put in time to help generate funds. There were some really unique Christmas gifts for the kids last year thanks to the collective effort by everyone and people brought all sorts of Christmas gift baskets and Christmas fruit baskets for the big Christmas dinner. Our neighborhood was really proud of our efforts last year and we’re hoping to do something even bigger and better this year.

I think it’s the true spirit of Christmas, giving and sharing and while we are all busy buying Christmas holiday gifts, we should think of others. A lot of people might say it’s hard to be charitable with the times being so tough and all, but I disagree. We make allowance for everything else. It was in this spirit that I had three fruit baskets delivered to the Christmas dinner being hosted by the charities.

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Chocolate Fruit and Hot Cocoa on Christmas

3:31 AM

Our neighborhood looks like the perfect Christmas post card in December. We have snow piled on houses and icicles hanging from tree branches and lots of Christmas lights. Once the Christmas holidays begin, the place is full of kids running around with their sleighs and having snowball fights.

I don’t get to enjoy much of the scenery as I’m locked up in my room wrapping, labeling and coding Christmas gifts. My husband thinks it’s very unhealthy for me. Two years ago he made an incredible effort and helped me out with a lot of my work. We had the wrapping, labeling, coding done two days in advance. We had scotch tape stuck to our holiday sweaters and ribbon tangled in our hair. But as we sat on the sofa together and watched the snow fall, I felt absolutely tranquil. To add to this perfect picture, a group of kids showed up to sing Christmas carols. They were kids from around the block and my son ran to join them. We stood in the door way and listened. The kids were cute but rather off tune. My son hadn’t helped much since he didn’t know all the words. It was cold and most of them were shaking as they sang.

Although I was tired from all the work I had put into wrapping the Christmas holiday gifts, I felt the urge to make something for them, as a nice encouragement. Like hot cocoa or something. I went into the kitchen and whipped some up. I hadn’t got around to baking any Christmas cookies yet so instead I brought out the beautiful fruit bouquet I had received from my sister. She had sent it in place of the usual Christmas gift baskets that she sends. It was a really unique Christmas gift and I thought to share it with the kids. We all stood out in the cold, with the snow falling lightly and enjoyed the Christmas fruit and hot chocolate. I owe that wonderful experience to my husband.

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The Gift of Fresh Fruit On Christmas

3:25 AM

A year ago a group of farmers held a fruit exhibition in our local area. Everyone was crazy excited about it. We wanted to see some seriously fresh fruit; some people were even under the impression that there would be fruit trees. They weren’t disappointed.

There was a lot of fresh fruit and a few fruit trees as well. And while some of us wondered how they got the trees all the way here, what most of us wondered was, what were these little old ladies thinking when they decided to do this. All the farmers at the fruit festival were petit little old ladies. They looked so grandmotherly that you just wanted to hug them. And they had excellent fruit. Everyone bought a lot of it and for the rest of the week we received Christmas fruit baskets from a lot of the neighbors. There was even a local business there that bought the fruit. They made some really nice fruit bouquets and I guessed they were stocking up for the Christmas orders. Their Christmas gift baskets are very popular and I often buy them for Christmas gifts.

The ladies themselves had some really terrific fruits baskets on display and were even demonstrating how to arrange fruits in a basket to make your own unique Christmas gifts. Since people never tire of fruit as Christmas holiday gifts, they had a really huge audience and an even bigger profit from their produce. I bought some excellent oranges and gifted half to my mom who has recently taken an interest in making jams, the rest of the half were made into orange juice and devoured by my family.

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In Her Shoes To Buy A Christmas Gift

3:17 AM

I had one of those long weekends with nothing to do and I ended up watching old movies. Not old, old movies, just ones that are on Cable T.V., the old movies that you can see for free on T.V. I was watching ‘In Her Shoes’. It was fun to watch and I remember thinking if my sister would be upset with me for trying on/using her shoes, not that I can. We don’t wear the same size.

The thing is my sister loves shoes. I think she has more shoes than she does clothes. The other problem is she hates the shoes I pick out but I love the ones she gets. All this means that I can’t buy shoes for her as a Christmas gift. This is a huge problem since everyone knows what to get her, a pair of shoes, but I can’t buy them for her. One way would be for me to take her along when I go to buy my Christmas holiday gifts and ask her to just pick her favorite. But I really don’t like doing that.

So how do I get around to picking a nice pair of shoes for my sister? The answer to that is I don’t, I just give her the money for it. And I know it sounds awful giving someone money on Christmas but I have found a nice way to deliver my Christmas gift. I buy a Christmas gift baskets and put any shoe shaped ornament/keychain in it. Then I get a shoe catalog or magazine and put a decorative envelop for the money inside it. When I put it all together like that, it makes a really great and unique Christmas gifts. She gets shoes from me and everyone’s happy.

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Patterns For Christmas Shopping

3:09 AM

I don’t know which is harder; finding unique Christmas gifts, staying in budget or making Christmas gifts at home. Since I’ve managed the first one successfully, the second one partially and the third one not at all, I’d have to say you can almost always find unique Christmas gifts. The trick is to know where to look and what to look for.

Normally the place to look for nice Christmas holiday gifts would be anyplace your friends and family visit frequently. With so many new things out on their shelves and the frequent visits by your loved ones, they will have picked something or a few things that they really like. So I suggest you take a stroll around the mall with them. By the time you’re done you’ll come away knowing what has appealed to your friend.

The second thing is staying in budget. Your friend or family member might have picked out around twenty things that he/she likes but you can’t buy them all. So to decide on what would make a unique Christmas gifts for a particular individual, look at their entire selection. You’re likely to spot a pattern. I did this with my mom. She is pretty old fashioned and is beginning to settle into her role as a grandmother. She took me to about a hundred stores for Christmas gift baskets, holiday candy and chocolate. So it was a bit obvious she wanted chocolate, preferably gourmet chocolate. And she wanted it wrapped nicely. So when I went shopping on my own, I bought a really tasty fruit bouquet for her. It was like a super Christmas fruit baskets and I knew she’d love it.

And as for the third thing, making your Christmas gifts at home, you’ll need to Google ‘Making Christmas Presents At Home For Dummies’

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Buying Christmas Gifts At Optimum Efficiency

3:02 AM

I have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as optimum efficiency. Everyone makes plans to work at optimum efficiency, doing the laundry at optimum efficiency, using fuel at optimum efficiency, completing office work at optimum efficiency. The reason I don’t think there is any such thing as optimum efficiency, is that no one notices if you’re working at optimum efficiency. If you get your work done before time, you will be judged as having ‘nothing to do’ and will subsequently be given something to do.

Like me and my Christmas shopping. I used get my Christmas shopping done at optimum efficiency. I had my Christmas gifts wrapped and well hidden a week before Christmas. I had mailed any and all greeting cards I was planning to send out. I had placed orders for various Christmas gift baskets to be delivered. I had made sure my gifts were just what everyone wanted. I had taken a lot of time and even more planning to buy the best and most unique Christmas gifts ever. By the third week of December I would be ready to sit comfortably on the big sofa and say, ‘Christmas, Bring it on’

And since I dared Christmas, it accepted. I had my family pour in to see me, announce their delight that I had finished my Christmas shopping so early and then ask me to wrap their Christmas holiday gifts. They would remind me not to forget the bow. I longed to tell them that the whole point of completing my Christmas shopping before hand was so I could relax and enjoy the holiday festivities. Not so I could wrap presents for Judy, Ann and Chuck. So like I said, there is no such thing as optimum efficiency. If you finish your Christmas shopping and wrapping early, you have your family’s Christmas shopping and wrapping to fall behind on. I now take as much time as possible to buy Christmas gifts and I am a proud Christmas slacker.

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The Scent of A Christmas Present

2:57 AM

Last weekend I was watching an episode of Mr. Bean where he went shopping. There was this scene where he walks into the perfume section and nearly suffocates because of the fumes. I’m not a big fan of Britain’s humor but I like Mr. Bean and his antics. I can actually relate to him suffocating from too much perfume.

I have a colleague who wears so much perfume we can still smell her fifteen minutes after she has left the room. At first I thought she must use a lot of perfume, like an entire bottle everyday. I was wrong. I went shopping for my Christmas gifts a few days ago and wandered to the perfume section. There were so many scents in the air that I felt a little light headed. There was a sales girl showing off a perfume to some women. She said one squirt of the stuff and the scent would last for three days. If used consistently, it wouldn’t even wash out. I was rude enough to ask her what I would have to do if I wanted to change my brand. Would I need to bleach my clothes? I don’t think perfume makes a very good Christmas gift.

In my opinion it says, ‘Here, you stink. Merry Christmas’. I visited all my usual stores, they get great stuff. Most of my widely complemented unique Christmas gifts come from them. I was done with the day’s Christmas holiday gift shopping by lunch. But I had been saving the time because I needed to look for a new store. It was for Christmas fruit baskets. I usually ordered them online but this time I had a coupon. Christmas gift baskets were a major part of my Christmas holiday gifts. They were what I usually gave at work. In fact we even sent them out as corporate gifts. It took me an entire thirty minutes to find the store. It was really pretty inside and they had so much more variety than I saw on the website. I redeemed my coupon and got a box of chocolate strawberries for free. On my way back to my car, I passed the perfume section again. I thought, ‘What the hell’ and bought the everlasting perfume for my colleague. She was delighted to receive it.

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Car Lifting Christmas Gifts

2:42 AM

I have sworn never to be part of a car pool. I was part of one once and came away with the conviction that I don’t do carpools. Unfortunately my lady boss who likes to pretend we’re best friends asked me if she could car pool with me for a week. She isn’t exactly my boss, but she is at senior position in another department. It was near Christmas so I felt bad saying no. Besides, it was my car and she was one person. It didn’t have to be so bad. In fact it didn’t have to be bad at all.

On day one we made a lot of formal talk. We asked about each other’s kids, mine were excited abut Christmas hers were spending it with her ex-husband. I changed the topic immediately. Day two; we discussed Christmas trees. It was a lot of small talk. On the third day our conversation skills began to pick up. We discussed Christmas gifts and she complemented me on the Christmas gift baskets that I usually brought to work around the holidays. She said she had given them to friends since they made really unique Christmas gifts. Her Christmas holiday gifts were bought mostly online and she complained about having to pay extra for them to be wrapped.

We were getting along really well; much better than I had thought possible. Until day four hit and she brought her mother with her. Her mother was very old and she asked if I would drop her off at the shopping mall. In my opinion that little old lady shouldn’t be dropped off anywhere on her own. I couldn’t say no, even though I really wanted to. It wasn’t about the gas or anything, it was about the fact that I, that is to say we, would be late for work and I don’t like being late for work.

But we took a very long thirty minute detour and dropped the little mother off. We were late for work and over lunch, I gathered we would be picking up little old mom from the shopping mall. When we arrived at the shopping mall she was standing there with a lot of shopping. It looked as if it would outweigh her. We piled the stuff into the car and then fit little old mom in as best as we could. The fifth day passed in absolute silence. On Saturday a wonderful Christmas fruit baskets was delivered to me. It was accompanied by a note written in shaky hand writing saying, ‘Thank you for helping me with my shopping’. Good deeds pay off.

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Christmas Gifts In A Stanger’s Car

2:35 AM

In December you can split the cars on the freeway into two broad categories; people going to work and people going Christmas shopping. People going Christmas shopping will go over a long list of Christmas gifts while they are stuck in the traffic jam. People going to work will honk horns and curse under their breath while they are stuck in the traffic jam. The thing is, you can usually tell the two apart. And you meet them on your to work and on your way home from work.

Identifying them on the way to work could be harder, especially if you’re going to work yourself and are busy hating the traffic for just being there. But they are very easy to spot on the way home. Their cars are full of the day’s shopping and while I’m stuck in the traffic jam on my way home, I often look at what Christmas holiday gifts they have bought. It’s a fun distraction and sometime you come across unique Christmas gifts stored in the cars. Often there are people taking home big Christmas gift baskets, a timeless gift in my opinion, some have bags of clothes and boxes of shoes and toys. I like looking at the Christmas gift baskets the most and I love seeing what kind people are getting.

The Christmas fruit baskets are always fun to look at and I see more than a few of them. So while I may hate the people going Christmas shopping on my way to work, I think I could positively socialize with them on my way home. From what I can tell about their taste in Christmas gifts, we would get along very well.

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Car Pooling Around Christmas

2:30 AM

People who commute to work know that on the way to the office there will be a traffic jam. They have a rough estimate of how long the traffic jam will be and they will know where the traffic jam will occur. So they make allowance for it by leaving home early and getting a head start. Then there are people who are stuck car pooling. My guess is that car pooling works for eleven months of the year, but not for December. During December there are more people on the road. People headed to shopping malls to buy Christmas gifts. They are the Christmas shoppers.

A few while ago I was stuck car pooling for two week. It was the longest two weeks of my life. It may have been fuel efficient but it was bad for my nerves. I didn’t like my fellow car poolers. They were frequently late and wore way too much perfume. Since they were so late and we had the added number of cars on the freeway, the commute to work for those weeks was hell. I was late everyday. I tried my best to get along with them or to blend in. I didn’t have much luck. They had this annoying game they played in the car. While I worried about being late for work, every three seconds someone would say, “Hey, You know what would make a really Unique Christmas Gift?” and the whole car would start off. Not that I don’t appreciate unique Christmas gifts, it’s just ideas for unique Christmas gifts hardly occur on the freeway while you’re stuck in a traffic jam. But they talked about their Christmas shopping, their Christmas holiday gifts and what not.

Then one day they broke my restraint. The rather plump woman who usually sat next to me brought two Christmas gift baskets with her. She was taking them to work and while the sentiment was very nice, carrying them in my lap was less than pleasant. One of them was a fruit basket and the other had chocolate and wine. We hit a bump somewhere and the bottle cracked and spilled on my brand new cashmere sweater and the pomegranates left a dark stain on my sleeve. I arrived at work looking like I had been mugged. I quit the car pool day and decided I’d sleep in the office before I tried it again.

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