My Favorite Gifts

My husband and I were talking several days ago about gifts. I wanted to better understand how he thinks (dangerous, I know) and what makes a good gift in his mind. He and I don't have the best record when it comes to gifts for each other, so I asked him to think of some of his favorite gifts, given or received, and explain what made them such great gifts. He asked me to do the same, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites:

First, I have to tell you that it's a hard call. My mom is constantly doing wonderful things for me (cooking food for my freezer, refinishing furniture, making me tablecloths, weeding my yard...) and my sister is constantly assembling wonderful packages (The How to Sew Basics, The New Gardener Collection, The Moving Prep Pack). In the end, I chose to write here about the stories I wanted writen down.

The Finals Prep Pack: The details on this one are a little murky, but the emotions and feelings attached to it are still very strong. During my first year in college my sister did many wonderful things for me. Deanna is four years older than me and before that year we hadn't really been friends- in fact I often referred to her as my third parent (shhh, don't tell her). But during that year she really reached out to me and we started a real friendship that has grown to be the closest and longest lasting friendship I've ever had. She sent me letters in the mail, emailed a lot, and sent me flowers on my birthday (who doesn't love getting called to the front desk of the dorm to pick up their Birthday flowers???). But the thing that really stood out came the week before finals. I got a shoe-box in the mail from my sister and it was full of snack food, post-it notes, and new pens, pencils, and highlighters! (yes, D and I have always been nerds). It really resonated with me- like someone understood the magnitude of what I was about to undertake. The gift really launched me into great cram week, but more, it created another connection with my sister.

The Skateboard: I was in elementary school, I think, and my dad and I were at the mall doing some shopping. I'm pretty sure mom was with us too, but she was somewhere else in the store when we got up to some shenanigans. We were in a sporting goods store and had found a skateboard with a radio mounted on the underside. I didn't know how to skateboard, but had a friend who did and was mildly interested. So I found a good station, hopped on and dad helped me as and tried my luck on the thing right there in the middle of the store with the radio singing.

Several weeks later, it was Christmas and mom and dad had created a scavenger hunt of sorts for me to find my big gift. When I found the radio skateboard at the end of the hunt I was more than a little surprised- after all, I hadn't put it on my Christmas list. My mom explained to me how dad had wanted to get it for me, but it was really ok if I wanted to exchange it for something else. Even now, I think my mom looks back on that gift as one of the most ridiculous things dad's ever done. I won't tell you I didn't think about returning it, but in the end I kept it and tried to learn to skateboard. I never did get the hang of skateboarding, and I remember the day I sent it to goodwill, but the gift still stands out in my memory as one of my favorites. It was a risky gift (they're usually some of the best), and it tells you a lot about my dad. He was, and still is, one of the most generous gifters I've known. I love the impulsiveness of the gift, that he wanted me to learn something new, that he got me something he wanted me to have, even though mom thought it was strange, and most of all, the happy moment that inspired it.

The Painted Pot: The first Christmas after we got married we had a lot of bills and not so much salary. We had moved to Michigan in June and I was VERY excited to be going home for the holidays. For some totally unknown reason I decided to paint my sister a flower pot for her house as her Christmas present. I was going through a Marjolein Bastin phase (ok, so maybe I’m still there- a little) and spent hours and hours and hours and hours working on birds, butterflies and a rabbit painted in a Bastin style. I went to crazy ends to pack the pot in my carry-on, not trusting the baggage handlers with it, and was so proud when Deanna opened it. She still keeps it out (or at least she does when I’m in town) and every time I see it I wonder what inspired it. I guess what I like so much about this gift is that I really put effort into something, it turned out nice, and the receiver seemed to really like it!

The Canon Powershot A530: Once you get married, giving each other gifts takes on a whole new meaning because when your husband buys you something he's really spending your money just as much as he's spending his own. In the end, how much of a gift is it to spend my money to buy me something I've already picked out? Add to that the fact that my husband makes it a habit to wait until the very last second to figure out what he wants to give anyone for any gift-worthy holiday. Quite often this results in a gift coupon or a picture of the gift that will be arriving sometime in the next five to eight business days.

However, for my Birthday in 2006, B stepped it up. I had been complaining about our digital camera and talking about how I wanted a new one but hadn't had the energy to go research them. So, B did all the research and picked out the perfect camera for me. I love that he took the initiative and that he used his time to figure out what we needed. But here's the best part: B had shopped ahead of time, so he was able to get a good deal and, on my Birthday, the actual, physical camera was there, waiting to be unwrapped.