My four younger kids got Amazon gift cards from my mom for Christmas, and they’ve spent most of the day poring over the site trying to decide what to buy. I think they’re having just as much fun shopping as they will with whatever gifts they end up choosing.
Given her tender years, Yrsa doesn’t really understand the concept of online shopping, and she understands even less the idea of waiting for her treasures to arrive, so I went ahead and picked out her presents myself. She’ll be getting a jigsaw puzzle, two books, and some markers and drawing paper, and I’m thinking that at least one of those things will serve double duty as a present for her birthday in two weeks. At not quite three, she’s still easily overwhelmed by massive quantities of gifts, and it’s generally best not to present her with more than two or three per occasion. She drove the older kids absolutely crazy on Christmas by wanting to pause and actually play with her new toys before moving on to open the next.
It’s too bad that her birthday follows so closely on the heels of Christmas, but it’s not exactly as though we planned it that way. Olof’s birthday is this coming Sunday and he says it never bothered him growing up that it was so close to Christmas, and if we’re lucky, Yrsa will feel the same. Of course, there’s not much that does bother him, so his experience might not be representative.
Speaking of his birthday, however, we actually have plans this year! Assuming that all of the kids are healthy, we’re going to send them off to his mom’s one evening later this week and go out for dinner and a movie. I’m not really much of a movie-going sort, but he’s got a couple of free passes that he got from work some months ago, and we really should use them. I’m not sure yet what we’ll see, but whatever it is, it’ll be nice to get out on our own.
Twelve years a Slave or Philomena are both supposed to be good and I can definitely recommend The Butler if you haven’t seen it yet.
My son never complains his birthday is so close after Christmas – it was worse for me having to buy his birthday present together with his Christmas presents when we were hard up (when I studied in Lund) If we waited till after Christmas then the toy shop had sold out of the best things. (There was no Toys R Us etc, just one toy store in Helsingborg!) Nowadays we can shop online of course so they don’t run out.
Having written that makes me realise just how much things have changed since he was a little boy! He’s 30 in two weks’ time. Wow!
Happy New Year!
I enjoyed “Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann” which we saw on Annandagsjul.
My birthday is also close to Christmas as well. When I was a child I resented the fact that my miserly relatives gave me ONE gift saying it was for both Christmas and my birthday (and it was the same gift they gave my siblings, not even something a bit more special). I also sometimes got people’s unwanted Christmas gifts for my birthday, often still wrapped in Christmas paper! The biggest problem with my birthday though is that on Jan 1st absolutely nothing is open so no flowers, restaurant visits etc and everyone is hungover/partied out/starting their New Year’s Resolution diet so it tends to get forgotten. By about the 4th, a few people suddenly remember that “wasn’t it your birthday the other day?”
Hope you guys have a wonderful New Year!