I remember when I was a teenager one of my sisters, who was about three at time, discovered Christmas shopping and giving. Being generous by nature, she bought everyone little gifts...including herself. And she wrapped everyone's little gifts...including her own. And on Christmas morning, we all opened our gifts from her...as did she. :)
I guess I am a bit guilty of buying one or two gifts for myself over the last 33 Christmases of my life. Usually it was a new CD of Christmas music. But with Pandora and the huge CD library one of my sister's has, I don't even do that anymore. But this year I went all out. I bought myself a rather expensive gift...even though it is quite small.
The story begins with I love carousels. In 2004, Hallmark produced a carousel and one of the animals for it: a lion. Over the next several years, they would produce one animal to add to it. In 2004 they produced so many lions they were selling them off half price after Christmas. So, my sister Katey (who bought me the carousel) fell back to her Scottish roots and decided she would wait till after Christmas to purchase 2005's animal, a giraffe. However, Hallmark decided (because they're a corporation and it's sound business) not to produce as many giraffes. Which meant they were all sold out by Christmas and could not be begged, borrowed or stolen afterwards. Within a few years the only place to find them was eBay...for anywhere between $125 to $200. Way too much this Scots-blooded person wanted to chunk out.
But I decided this Christmas as I was putting my carousel up (minus the giraffe) that I wanted to see if I could complete it. So I started watching eBay and bidding on the one's that were less than $100. On Monday I became quite the eBay guru. The bid wasn't going to end until 10 minutes after I left work...so I followed it on my phone. And won!
So this year my carousel will be complete...and my Christmas money spent in advanced.
No comments:
Post a Comment