Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking that I could move at the first of the year with the holidays coming right BEFORE the first of the year.
I’m getting the girls Nanos. E has the older nano, which doesn’t have a video screen. She didn’t realize that the non-video screen wasn’t compatible with the video games on iTunes, and had downloaded Tetris. She can’t use it. Sounds to me like she needs a Nano.
Beloved will take over her old Nano for the gym.
But since we have our solstice tradition, where we make each other gifts, this could be a little hypocritical. Silly Zuska, always taking the easy way out and buying her way through the holidays. So, I thought of a solution:

E’s will probably be very similar to the multi-color one pictured. J’s will likely be a variation on the blue one, only in purple. I may put straps on them, I may not.
First I have to re-teach myself how to crochet. I used to know how …
And this year, I’m just saying it up front — I’m not making anything for Beloved. I’m buying him something, and it’s a big something, but I’m not making it. And I’m not crocheting a case for it, either. Unless you want to think that I’m making him a crapload of work.
I mean, it isn’t easy transferring files — photos, iTunes, tons of word processing documents. It will probably take him a very, very long time.
But then we have the other problem … what do we do when people ask us what we want for Christmas? We have space issues, so we don’t want too much stuff in our house. We’ve always had space issues, and my kids were raised with that in the background, and so they aren’t “stuff” people. Oh sure, E wants a new MacBook, and they want new iPods, but beyond that … they just shrug.
They don’t want anything.
I told my ex-mother-in-law that they would like gift cards for clothes. It’s so hard to pick for them now, but they enjoy being able to shop. I also gave her some other ideas, as far as fancy papers and other craft items that they really enjoy playing with. Also their ever-present desire for journals and drawing pads.
My mother, though – I didn’t know what to do. I suggested boots. You know, leather almost-to-the-knee boots? But it’s hard, and she doesn’t like the styles they like, and sizes could be tough to pin down for a gift.
I almost let her have the iPod idea, but $150 is a little higher than what she usually spends (she usually spends $100 on one gift, and then another $100 on crap that we don’t know what to do with and that sits in a gift bag in the girls’ room until we finally go through and carry stuff down to the trash room in the basement).
Finally … I said, “Mom!!” they love to see shows. She wants to take them to NY anyway … do a day in the city with them. Make them a little book to present to them when we’re together for our Christmas gathering – a collage of things they will do together. She wants to do a museum (I’m not sure which), and a show. She also figures once she settles on a show (we’re thinking Lion King), she’ll get them the soundtrack to open.
She loved the idea.
The city is a short train ride away from my parents’ house, and it’s easily a day trip.
She said my dad won’t want to go, though.
So I get to go!
I will chip in and do a fancy dinner out for the 4 of us.
I think we’re going mid to late January. When Beloved is away matriculating.
But I think it’s a better gift than a bag full of crap.
We’ll have a good Christmas.
Or, Solstice.
The girls leave on the morning of Christmas Eve to fly down to the inside of someone’s mouth to visit with their father and his family. And Beloved and I will hang out alone for a week, until they return and we celebrate 2008’s arrival together.
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