Two weeks before christmas I was totally caught off guard at work when I was handed a name to buy a "secret santa" gift for. I was really pissed that the owner of the company just assumed everyone wanted to play this stupid game. It was too late to say anything to him at this point since it would screw everything up if I took myself out. So I stayed quiet and played the game.
The day we exchanged gifts my secret santa (a super sweet, but naive grandma) came up to me and handed me a book. She nervously explained that she'd heard that I dont celebrate christmas. She said "i didnt know what to give you, I didnt know if 'christ' offends you so I didnt include a christmas card." At the time I didnt have time to explain myself and I got the impression she thought I was the anti-christ. Later, I opened the book and was pleasantly surprised to find that the book was not just another empty secret santa gift. It was however a vessel for the real gift. Inside, was a sheet of paper about the Brent Eley Foundation at the bottom she wrote a note explaining that she donated to this charity in my name. I met up with her later and thanked her for the best gift I've ever recieved. At this time I got the opportunity to explain why I dont celebrate christmas and explained that if every christmas gift was as unselfish and generous as this one I'd be christmas's biggest proponent. She thanked me for teaching her a wonderful lesson and told me she now has a new christmas tradition!
That's one down and about 6 billion to go.
Posted by nicole at January 2, 2006 07:51 AMThat's so awesome. Best Christmas gift ever!
Posted by: Megan at January 3, 2006 09:26 AMapparently you haven't had many thoughtful gifts before... hehe. Many people give gifts like that. I gave both my parents donations to charities I thought they would like to support a couple years ago.
Gift giving and being a consumer whore only goes as far as what you choose to support, ie buying more thoughtful gifts, versus just something simple and fun with no point.
But since you dont like giving gifts around xmas... I will try to suprise you and support you with a random gift some other time... Like some Pert Plus, or an emergency flashlight, which is great for quick little power outages.
Anyways, to each there own, I have my lame pet peeves as well.
Posted by: dan at January 3, 2006 09:35 PMactualy Dan, you would be wasting your money on perfectly good shampoo if you were to buy little miss "I'm not a consumer" a bottle of Pert Plus.
Posted by: Vegas at January 4, 2006 09:56 AM