Comments (28)

By kilax, December 11, 2009 4:12 am

Tell me all about your holiday gift-giving! To whom to you give gifts? Do you make them or buy them (in stores or online)? Do you have any gift-giving traditions? Do you participate in gift exchanges? Do you share a holiday wishlist with friends and family? Does all of this STRESS YOU OUT?!

We usually buy* gifts (in stores and online) for all of our immediate family and grandparents. But we are cutting back this year. In my family, my three siblings and the three significant others all drew names. Steven is buying a gift for my older brother’s wife and I am buying a gift for my younger brother’s girlfriend. Then, we are only buying gifts for our parents and Steven’s brother. I thought I would feel sad about this, but actually, I feel RELIEVED and not stressed at all. Instead of buying a lot of gifts, I get to focus on the one specific person whose name I drew! Edited to add: Steven and I exchange gifts every year, but have not decided if we will this year or not. Not because we don’t want to, but to save money.

And I am ALL ABOUT the wishlists. I created two separate wishlists this year for me and Steven – one for my family and one for his. And we asked for them in return, especially for the people whose names we drew! I know some people think having a wishlist means you don’t get to be creative, but I just think it means you know what the person actually wants. If I am spending money, I want to make sure it’s well spent.

I am participating in Morning Runner’s gift exchange. I got paired with RunningLaur and am sending her gift off today! Here’s a sneak peak, Lauren! You’ll have to guess if you are getting the gray item or the pink item.

*I do LOVE to make people’s favorite treats and give them to them as well.

Comments (34)

By kilax, June 9, 2009 5:06 am

Today is my mom’s 50th Birthday! Happy Birthday Mamu!!!

Do you think I look like my mom at all?

My siblings and Steven and I threw my mom a surprise party this Saturday in Cedar Falls, Iowa. When my dad turned 50, we threw him a surprise party as well, so I was sure my mother would be expecting it. I sent her a “fake” birthday gift last week (I am not sure why I am calling it “fake” – it was actually two tangible gifts) to throw her off.

My grandma (her mother) who lives out of town told my mom that she was coming to town to watch her grandkids and wanted to know if my mom wanted to meet her for dinner. My grandma even called my mom during the day and said something like, “The kids are behaving so nicely!” Ha. She wasn’t even in town yet.

We held the party at my uncle’s bar. The bar has a main area, an extended seating area, and a partitioned off room with a bar. We set up the food in the room with the bar, and crammed back there to yell “surprise!” when she arrived. I think we succeeded in surprising her. I wish I had a photo of her reaction. Hopefully someone got one.

I also wish I had a photo of the setup. My sister and Steven and I worked really hard all day at preparing the food and decorations. We had cold cut sandwiches, fresh veggies and dip, a wonderful fresh fruit salad (grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple and strawberries), chips, pea salad and rye bread cucumber sandwiches that my grandma insisted on making, cookies (photo below!), two cakes and soda and water. We decorated with balloons and streamers and posters I made (I will update them to the photo page later in the week).

A lot of people came to the party -about 35 adults and 4 kids. We had everyone sign a frame with birthday wishes on it, the same thing we did for my dad’s party.

Our big gift for my mom was a purple 8GB iPod Nano (if that’s what it’s called). We put her favorite video – I’m on a Boat – on it. When I showed her the video, she turned to her friends and said, “Did you know these things have video?!” It was pretty cute. I bet she’ll use about 20% of it’s capability in her lifetime. The night before the party, we set up the iPod and named it “Forever 39,” so when we found a “39 Forever” button at the party shop the next day, we had to buy it for her!

Steven and I also bought my mom a big can of beans. Ha.

The party was a whirlwind. I was honestly a lot more worn out than I would have liked to be. Fitting party planning in with my already hectic schedule really exhausted me. I felt pretty edgy on Sunday because of my lack of sleep. I hope I get to catch up… someday. A full six hours of sleep in one night would be nice!

Of course, it was totally worth it. Even though I was totally exhausted, I still was having fun being goofy. My mom and sister are pretty good at bringing it out of me.

Trying to eat ice cream cupcakes…

It would be my honor, to be your new stepfather.

And I have to share this photo of my parents looking pretty bad ass back in the day. Steven really likes this photo for some reason, and we got them to “re-pose.” Ha. When explaining the photo, my mom said they had attitude, before there was attitude. Riiight…

And how is my mom spending her actual birthday? In class all day! She has a three hour math class (with a test!) in the morning, and a three hour speech class in the evening. Boo! I hope she still gets to do something fun today!

More photos…

Me and Steven.

My younger brother, Anthony, and my mom.

My sister, me, my grandma and my mom.

Comments (21)

By kilax, December 19, 2008 5:26 am

If you could receive one non-tangible item for the holidays, what would you choose?

I would like my train to be on time, every night.

No more “mechanical problems,” “signal problems,” “accidents not related to this train” (yeah, that was an excuse for one of the delays on Tuesday), no more leaving the station late, no more sitting on the train not moving, with no explanation…

Yeah, I know that is too much to ask for. I think my train is on time in the evenings 20% or less of the time when I take it. I think if it is ALWAYS going to be late, they should just adjust the schedule to accommodate the later time. Then I wouldn’t get as upset, because I would expect it to arrive at that later time.

This may seem like a dumb answer to this question, but it takes me a long time to calm down from the anger the late train causes. Steven can attest to that! It’s silly to let something like that upset me, but it does. I have limited time in my evenings, and I want to make the most of them. So, I would love to get rid of that anger, and anxiety, of wondering when I will EVER get home.

I love riding the train, I really do. But I hate feeling like my evening is out of my control when I get stuck on it. (I hate feeling like anything is out of my control…)

Comments (19)

By kilax, December 10, 2008 9:01 pm

A little public announcement before the post: I feel guilty writing posts, when I have emails that need to be responded to, as well as over 400 unread items in my google reader. I feel guilty for responding to things slowly or late (like birthday announcements and other important news in posts). Please forgive me. Writing here is an outlet for me. It really alleviates stress, so it is the first thing I make time for. I really enjoy writing emails and reading blogs too. In fact, I am upset that my schedule has not allowed me to “catch up.” You all know how that is though. Anyway, my apologies. I hope to have time to catch up… some weekend? Okay, announcement over.

This year, both of our families have told us to “expect a smaller Christmas.” Or rather, they’ve apologetically told us they don’t have as much money to spend as in years past.

I’m guessing we’re not the only ones hearing this?

It makes me really sad that people feel like they have to apologize for giving less presents during the holidays. It makes me sad, because I know they are genuinely upset that they cannot give as much to us as they have before. And I know that no matter how much I tell them it doesn’t matter to me, it will still matter to them.

It’s hard not to let gift-giving become some sort of obsession during the holidays. You stress and stress over how much money to spend, what to buy, and then how they will react when they open it, whether or not they like it…

Our big thing is that we want to buy people things they actually WANT, rather than aimlessly searching for something, just to say “I got you a gift!” So, we started brainstorming ideas for people back in October. But, as my second cousin Denise wisely told me, “I stress about buying present every year because I never know what to buy for people. I guess we’ve all gotten to the point where we buy what we want and things that we don’t buy no one else can afford.” Ugh, exactly. For some people, it is impossible for Steven and I to come up with good gift ideas, unless they’re super expensive. People in our lives generally have what they want. Or sadly, we don’t know enough about our own family member’s interests to buy them something new they may enjoy.

So, we get caught up in this whole stress thing too.

I always have fun buying and giving gifts, but I do worry about finding that “perfect” gift.

Yeah, it doesn’t exist. And I have quit pretending it does. I am just going to enjoy the holidays.

I started thinking about all of this because my office is answering “Letters to Santa.” Children in impoverished neighborhoods write the letter to Santa at their schools and then the Sun-Times newspaper delivers the letters to organizations that buy and wrap the gifts these kids are asking for.

I didn’t participate (because I just started), but I think it really put things into perspective for a lot of people, answering a letter where a kid would ask for something so simple, like “a stuffed bear I can hug,” “anything Hot Wheels,” or “a Barbie.” One woman said it made her feel awful that a kid was asking for a $10 Barbie and she bought her own son a $200 PlayStation.

We all know we’ve become incredibly materialistic. We live our lives in pursuit of “stuff.” You want to earn more money at your job, so that you can get the “stuff” you want, and live in your preferred comfort zone.

And yes, we all think about this more around the holidays, maybe feeling a little guilty about it, maybe not.

I just want people to understand that “having less” at Christmas isn’t going to ruin the holiday for me. But there is really no way to alleviate someone else’s guilt.

Comments (14)

By kilax, May 22, 2008 5:34 am

Steven called me yesterday at work to tease me. “I have a surprise for you.”

“Oh! What is it?”

“You have to wait until you get home tonight.”

“You turd.”

I love surprises. I looked forward to it all day. I was having a crappy day. I got home and my surprise was… a bag of bath goodies from Lush, the “fresh handmade cosmetics” store. YAY!!! Steven got me bath bombs and bath bars, for soaking in nice, long, hot baths. Which is just what I need to relax, because I have been such a cranky you-know-what lately. Especially to him. (Maybe that was the inspiration?)

What a sweetie. I’m still smiling.

Of course, this reminded me of another story. It’s story-time kids! Sick of it yet? Please tell me if I am repeating previous stories.

Last year I was flying to Denmark from O’Hare airport, and Steven decided to come have dinner with me before my flight took off. He did the same thing; called and said, “I have a surprise for you.”

I excitedly told a few of my classmates, “My fiance has a surprise for me! I wonder what it is!”

So the first thing I said to Steven when we sat down at the dinner table was “What’s my surprise? Where is it?!”

He opened up his briefcase and handed me…

… a calendar. From Chipotle. With pictures of burritos for each month.

Seriously.

I was so mean! I said “THIS is it?”

“Yeah,” was his reply. “We both love burritos so much, I bought one for each of us.”

I still feel bad for having such a mean reaction. Because it was a really sweet and thoughtful gift (that I used ALL year long), just not what I was expecting.

My friends asked me what Steven gave me when I got back from dinner. I pulled it out of my bag and handed it to them.

“Sweet! Where can I get one of these?!” Their reaction was genuine.

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Today’s Idiom: thumb’s down – signal of rejection (Roman emperors could condemn a gladiator who fought poorly by turning their thumbs down)

Steven gave my gutter ball a thumb’s down. Unfortunately, I didn’t do any better in the second frame.

Comments (7)

By kilax, December 28, 2007 8:17 am

What gift were you most excited to give someone this holiday season? How did they react when they opened it?

It’s kind of silly for me to ask this, because personally, the only person I have given gifts to so far is Steven. We haven’t seen his family or mine yet.

But, I really love giving gifts, so I wanted to hear all of your stories before it got too late into January and you forgot!

Steven has been talking about a universal remote they sell at his office for months now. He anxiously awaited its December in-store release so he could play with it.

As soon as it came in the store, he gave me rave reviews of how much he liked it, how cool the interface was, blah blah blah. Unfortunately, the thing is a few hundred dollars, and I couldn’t afford to buy it for him.

I told him he wouldn’t be getting it and he didn’t seem too disappointed. He knows I am not rolling in the riches!

But then his brother and parents decided to go in on it with me for his birthday.  So I bought it in secret (which was hard since I bought it where he works!).

We were planning on giving it to him together last Saturday – on his birthday. But our flight never left, and we went back home. On Sunday, his parents told me to go ahead and give it to him. He was so surprised and happy to get it! He spend the whole day programming it. He even brought it to bed with him. Ha ha.

I am happy too – now we don’t have to use 4 separate remotes to watch a movie!

Comments (9)

By kilax, December 22, 2007 9:04 am

Today is Steven’s birthday and I am really excited to give him the two gifts I got him – a watch case engraved with his initials, and a watch:

Steven doesn’t like surprises. I love surprises. So every year, I buy him something not on his wish list, in hope that he will start to love surprises like I do.

And every year, he guesses what the thing is I bought him. Even though it wasn’t on his list. This year was no different! How does he do it? Am I that obvious?

Oh well, I still enjoy pretending that I was really clever and bought him something he would never figure out.

Happy Birthday, Steven.