Christmas

It's almost here...

I have a love/hate relationship with it.

Love the real reason for Christmas, who doesn't? Love to see someone happy with the gift I got them. Love the togetherness this time of year brings.

Hate the acquiring of the gifts!

My kids are easy, most of the time. They usually begin a list around the end of August, which is subject to change multiple times before December arrives, but I listen to what they ask for more than once, so it is usually pretty easy.

Jason is Jason. Sometimes I think I am getting him the perfect gift, and it isn't, or I think I have bought the worst gift known to man, and he thinks it's the best. This year, I told him to make me a list. We shall see how this goes.

My in-laws... They say they are not picky, I beg to differ. She (MIL) will tell me anything to do with _________ (whatever she is in to at the time). Seems easy, it isn't. I think it is hard to please her because whatever we give her is not going to compare to what my brother-in-law gives her. I could give her a million bucks, he could buy some stupid glass figure at the dollar store, and he wins. I have no idea why this is so, it just is. She will open her gift(s) from us and say how much she likes it, so forth, but the next words out of her mouth is what he got her and how wonderful it is. So, maybe getting her a gift isn't that hard, what is hard is being able to top someone Else's gift. I know this sounds ridiculous, but it has happened every Christmas, birthday, and Mother's Day for the past 11 years.

It doesn't matter if she likes the gift I stress over for months, not really, maybe just a little bit, but only to me. So I will once again go out with the masses and fight for that perfect _________ that will only get ignored after his gift is opened.

I take all the things she does to me and put them in my file folder of "How not to be a mother-in-law". This is going in, I will never treat my daughter-in-laws like this. I vow to LOVE every gift given to me, no matter what it is!

Kathy