The Family Calendar

Every year—usually around Black Friday, to get the best deal—I log into VistaPrint.com and upload a bunch of the previous year's family photos and create a calendar for the coming year. They always arrive quickly and look great and I order enough copies that I can use them as gifts for those people on my Christmas list who are particularly hard to buy for. (Let this be fair warning to those who know me and fail to drop overt hints as to what they might like for Christmas.)

Even though I live with her every day, my wife is by far the most difficult puzzle on my Christmas list and so she automatically gets one. The first time I did it, it was unexpectedly well received and so, of course, I now repeat the action every year partially because I learn new tricks so quickly and partially because I am so slow to learn new, new tricks. My wife likes it because it's covered in pictures of her family, but also because she finds it useful for keeping track of all the appointments for her and the kids. Whenever I see it hanging on the wall, dates filled with ink, I smile, reflecting on that rare feeling of having bought a gift that turned out to be appropriate.

I try to find photos from the previous year, representing each month and include as much of the entire family as I can, though the four of us are the main feature. I definitely try to avoid anything morbid but feel that to be representative, I must include some negative things. This year's calendar included a picture from the emergency room after my brother's bicycling accident. It's a head shot of Mike just before getting a huge train track sewn across a wide gash on his left cheek.

I remember when I was taking this picture thinking that his days of being the better-looking brother were over. How good looking is he? Well, a beautiful girl—a complete stranger—once came up to him in a bar, kissed him on the lips and whispered, "I just had to." Where I might have replied something unintelligible weakly followed by, "... call me?" he smiled, said something akin to "I understand," but probably much cooler, then returned to his beer while the rest of us chopped livers watched in stunned silence as she sauntered away in slow motion, long, lustrous hair blowing and backlit. I remember her to this day. He doesn't. Turns out, it wasn't the first time. Nor was it the last.

A few years back, we were in Vegas with a cadre of friends celebrating Mike's 50th birthday. At 50, I assumed that he was past his prime and hanging out with him would be a reasonably safe place for my ego. He and I wanted to see Cirque de Soliel but the tickets were a little more expensive than we'd expected and we hoped to get a deal by waiting until just after the doors closed before purchasing. There wasn't much of a line up which either meant that everyone had pre-booked or that there might be some empty seats. My brother offered to watch the theatre doors and then queue up at the last second. Meanwhile, I nursed a drink in a nearby lounge with Patricia, one of our friends who found herself at loose ends because all of our other friends were busy gambling and she'd literally shot her wad the day before firing machine guns at about 20¢ a bullet.

Patricia: "I paid $100 and stood in line, in the blazing sun, for nearly 2 hours to learn one interesting fact: An Uzi 9mm fires 500 bullets a second."

She was interested in seeing Cirque de Soliel but instead resigned herself to the cost-saving measure of watching TV in her room for a couple of hours until we all regrouped for dinner.

When the doors closed, there was no lineup at the ticket booth. But seconds before my brother stepped up to the booth, a man approached him offering a free ticket. Apparently, he'd been stood up and as the doors were closing, the ticket would otherwise go to waste. My brother hesitantly accepted the gift, then proceeded forward and bought two more tickets for the show at a very-last-minute-discount of 20%—better than we'd hoped. He then re-gifted that free ticket to Patricia.

Only about two-thirds of the seats were occupied but being good Canadians, we all stuck with the seat numbers on our tickets, though that put us quite a distance apart.

If you've never seen Cirque de Soleil I wholeheartedly recommend it, though I can not adequately describe it. All I can say is; forget what you know of circus and theatre and prepare yourself for two hours of a breathtaking, heart-stopping performance during which your only two thoughts will be: "Oh my God! That's absolutely gorgeous!" and "Oh my God! Any second now, someone's going to die!"

No one died.

Afterward, our little threesome reconvened in the lobby and Patricia told us what had happened immediately after she took her seat...

Stranger [in the seat next to her]: "Excuse me, but you're in my seat."

Patricia: "Excuse me? What?"

Stranger: "I purchased that seat for my friend."

Patricia [examining her ticket]: "My ticket shows this number."

Stranger [and stranger]: "Hey! I gave that ticket to a man."

Patricia: "And he gave it to me."

Stranger [clearly agitated]: "Well, it wasn't for you. It was for him!"

After which he Harumpf!-ed loudly, slumped deeply into his seat, arms tightly crossed, and sat making seething sounds, like the fuse of a large firework.

Patricia moved to an empty seat and enjoyed the show.

The free ticket had been part of a very clever—though flawed—pick-up manoeuvre. There's no denying that someone's good looking when their attractiveness is so extreme that it transcends gender!

To my chagrin, a few months after the ER, Mike's uncanny X-man-like healing powers left him with a faint, almost decorative scar which served no more purpose than to transform his boyish good looks into rakish good looks. If I didn't love him, I'd hate him.

Meanwhile, back at the calendar: My wife wants the kids to take a multivitamin every day. They do it on their own, but as a check, she asks them to make a mark on the calendar if they have taken their daily dose. Last year, I noticed that between her appointments and the kids' vitamin marks, the day-squares became very crowded. And, one time, I heard her complain that there was not enough space to pencil in a new event.

So, this year, I ordered a much larger calendar. As usual, it was a welcomed gift—for my wife, if not my six-year-old niece. Her own fault, really, for putting "drone" on her Christmas list.

Today, 28 days into the new year, I glanced at the calendar expecting to see some squares neatly filled in with events and appointments. Here is what I saw...

Apparently, the kids assumed the extra space was meant entirely for them. A sound assumption, as most everything else is. The simple act of signing off on their vitamin has escalated into some sort of graffiti war and the entire spaces are now occupied territory.

I immediately ran to tattle to my wife. Sometimes a husband needs attention, too. She said, "It's cute."

Cute?

I once got reamed out for putting a smiley face in the corner, on her birthday: "It looks constipated. I thought you were mad at me. If you have to scribble, please do it on your own birthday."

Sometimes, Life can be unfair.

So far, this year, my obsessively punctual wife has missed three appointments.

And, sometimes, Life evens things up a bit.

_______________________________

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Gifting Grievances

I'm that person who has everything. I've noticed that there are a lot of ads depicting gifts for me. These are lies. You know what that "person who has everything" really wants? By definition: Nothing.

I know that I'm impossible to buy for and I wish my family would stop trying.

I don't actually have everything, but I am very satisfied with what I do have and can afford to buy anything I need, and most everything I want. Those few things that I can not afford are beyond the budget of anyone else I know. Also, I've been told that I am very picky. I prefer to call it "discriminating." Which, I suppose, pretty much proves that point.

I don't try to be difficult, but I'm a middle class, North American adult and if I really want something, I buy it. Therefore, if I didn't buy it I didn't want it. I've told my family this—repeatedly. And yet they persist. I even posted the concept on social media. Surprisingly, it did not go viral. Humbug!

Do me a favour and help this go viral, on social media.

Birthday and Christmas gifts are appropriate for children as they generally don't have the means to purchase every single thing that they want or need. But with manufacturers cheaply churning out millions of copies of every possible thing while online marketers make them irresistibly accessible, it's hard for parents not to spoil their children. Whether your kid is into Lego, Superheroes, Harry Potter, Barbie or vintage Elvis bobbleheads (you know your kid's not like other kids, right?) you can find it and you can probably afford to purchase it. Worse yet, your child knows this.

To combat this, my wife and I err on the side of giving too little, as opposed to too much. This has made our children unusually easy to please which failed to solve the problem. Paradoxically, because of their minimal expectations, a day rarely goes by where they don't have a stocking-stuffer moment. My son is a Pokemon freak. Give him a single sticker and his eyes light up and he vibrates like a lab rat on sugar-coated Cocaine. Similarly, if you present my daughter with a printed out Harry Potter colouring sheet, she will tear up and hug you until it gets awkward. They are aged eleven and nine. It may be relevant to point out that they are home schooled. With the bar set so low, it's difficult to stem the flow of what they consider to be gifts. So, for them, every day is mini-Christmas.

It's hard to not spoil a kid who still thinks that a paper hat
and a target bag is dressing up like Santa...

...or her older brother who believes he's made an
amazing super hero costume from newspapers.

Their friends have similar experiences but on a grander scale. Those few things that the average kid lacks are beyond our gift-giving budget. I suspect that's why a trend amongst our circle of parents is to limit birthday gifting. A typical invite may mention a token monetary donation—usually for charity—but will clearly state "no gifts." The pendulum has swung so far that each party guest receives a complimentary "goody bag," just for showing up. I'm not sure why there have to be goody bags. Why can't humans be happy with a zero-sum game? I wish that we could all just agree that none of us really needs anything and that celebrations are best when they are about getting together rather than getting presents?

But, at least kids love receiving gifts.

For me, unwanted items are a burden. I resent having to store, organize and redistribute them. Most are regifted, donated, or sold. If you are ever in my neighbourhood, you'll want to make a point of checking out my summer garage sale.

We are overstocked and everything is priced to sell! 

It's all about divestment. Price is merely a formality and almost everything is brand new. Beyond untreasured gifts, you will also find a year's worth of my wife's excess couponing purchases—things we don't use but that she made money on, by buying. It's all name-brand and typically includes candy, shaving cream, shampoo, hair dye, electronic soap dispensers, scented candles and cleaning products. (For more couponing details, refer to my 4-part series: Adventures in Couponing)

My family makes a point of visiting my garage sale. They never buy anything. They come to find out whether I appreciated the gift they gave me, six months previous. I see it as a classic demonstration of "if you ask for it, the Universe will deliver." My family really, really asks for it—assuming, of course, by "it" you mean disappointment. Consequently, I endure a family rep for being cold and unsentimental and am sometimes lovingly referred to as "The Grinch Who Sold Christmas." In silent retaliation, I've labelled them all "slow learners."

I've told them my feelings. I've demonstrated my resolve. And yet, each Christmas or birthday I still get saddled with gifts for the guy who has everything—a stylish ornament which never matches our "day-care chic" decor, an animated plastic object that sings an irritating song the entire time you're desperately trying to gouge out the batteries, or another pocket knife. I'd still have more knives than pockets even if I wore cargo pants, a fishing vest, trenchcoat and a billiard table. I've used a pocket knife exactly once in my adult life—to pry open another pocket knife for someone at my garage sale. On balance, I probably don't whittle as often as I should.

If I wanted bad gifts, I would just keep all those art projects my kids bring me to decorate my office. Ok, maybe I am a little bit cold, but to be fair, my kids are very industrious and have far too much free time.


Well, At Least They Tried:
One Christmas, my family thought it would be a good idea if, instead of stressing out to buy a couple of dozen gifts, we put our names in a hat and selected a single person to buy for. Naturally, I was enthusiastic. I drew a name and had an entirely stress-free season... right up until Christmas morning.

There was an unforeseen downside to the name-in-a-hat strategy: it upped the budget which put additional pressure on that one gift. Instead of gifts valued in the tens of dollars, most people decided that they had to spend hundreds. But anything that expensive really needed to be something the recipient would truly appreciate. By this time I had a policy of only purchasing consumables (i.e. food, engine oil, printer toner) or experiences (i.e. movie passes, elocution lessons, interventions) so this worked well for me. I gave my brother-in-law an anger management course which, as it happened, was not well received. Fortunately, his rant only increased my confidence in the appropriateness of the gift. But it turned out that others had less confidence in their purchases and so, had hedged their bet.

I received a second gift. Followed by a third. Then, a fourth; ending up with just as many unwelcomed gifts as I'd gotten the year before. Apparently, no one else had adhered to the single gift restriction. In secret, they had all reverted to their usual Christmas shopping.

To fill one of the awkward silences, I explained that from my point of view, I was the only one who did not have a "shopping problem." Their counterargument: "Grinch!'

The family never again attempted to tamper with the gift-giving tradition.

As we've grown older, the others are slowly coming around. Gifting the adults has not ended, but it's deescalated into a strange, circular ceremony wherein we all exchange lottery tickets. To me, this is a good idea because millions of dollars happens to be on the short list of things I don't yet have. However, I'd prefer if we each just bought ourselves a ticket and dispensed with the ceremony which is as redundant as me buying your kid's Soccer raffle tickets when you buy my kid's Girl Guide cookies. Also, I'm not sure how I'll handle the resentment if my sister wins ten million from a ticket I bought and was forced to give to her in exchange for a losing one.

Good Gift/Bad Gift:
In case you are still bound and determined to get something for the adults in your life, here is the short list of things that I have found to be decent gifts for adults:
• magazine subscriptions, books
• lottery tickets
• food items (candy, specialty jams/tea/coffee, alcohol, Pop Tarts)
• other consumables like soap, bubble bath, perfume, lipstick
• gift certificates to favourite store or for things like a spa treatment, a movie, or the driving range


For contrast, here is a prime example of a bad gift...

Gifting The Spouse:
My largest gift-giving problem each year is my wife, Junko. (June•ko)

I see no reason to buy gifts for other adults, but I always want to get something for her in spite of the fact that she's Japanese and this adult gifting idea is completely foreign and somewhat repulsive to her.

(Note: The Japanese have a much more complex, yet equally illogical, gift-giving culture which, oddly, Junko thinks makes perfect sense and participates in, to the point of obsession—as is the Japanese way.  As in North America, generous gifts are expected for all major events like weddings, birthdays, new year's day and bar mitzvahs. But, as well, there is a huge industry built around exchanging unappetizing confections wrapped in decorative packages to celebrate the smallest of events... •Hello, thanks for coming. Have a cookie.  •Oh, well thanks for having me. Here's a cookie.  •Goodbye. Thanks for leaving. Take a cookie. •Well, thank you for kicking me out. Please enjoy this cookie. •I've been sleeping with your wife. I'm sorry. Please accept this cookie.  •Thank you for your honesty. Did you get the cookie I left under the pillow? •I accidentally used your toothbrush. Cookie? •Though you are the cable guy and your timing is unusual, it is good that you brushed your teeth. Please, have a cookie.  •Actually, I used it to clean the seat before I used your toilet. Please accept this cookie.  •Er... you have saved me the trouble of cleaning the toilet seat. Please enjoy a cookie. •Actually, my aim was not good. You'd better take the whole box.)

Even before she got into couponing, buying a gift for Junko was not easy. She has that traditional Japanese sense of romance which, in case you weren't aware, is just slightly more subdued than a sedated Vulcan's. Chocolate and flowers are meaningless to her—she does like diamonds, but I feel it's mostly for their economic value and, after fourteen years, we've pretty much exhausted the affordable variations on that theme. And, she's eminently practical, with a hair trigger for returning anything that isn't. This is why I strive to be handy around the house.

On top of all of this, she's a minimalist, never purchasing anything extraneous.

In desperation, I now keep a list on my cell phone of anything that she's running low on, or expresses the slightest interest in. Things that break can be a source of great joy for me, but I have to balance this against my need to appear handy.

Early on in our relationship, it was established that Junko would always be our household's primary purchasing agent...

ME: What are you talking about? I'm great with money!

JUNKO: Perhaps. But you are not so great, without money.

ME: . . .

JUNKO: And, you tend to run out of it very quickly. So, I think it would be best if I did all the shopping.

Bested. And in my own language! Again.

So, while she doesn't endorse the adult gift-giving idea, she nevertheless participates by acquiring almost all of the gifts we give. And, she does it in her own very special way because she's a "couponer." I used to have to be forced to admit this—under my breath, with my head lowered. But now, having seen the thousands of dollars she saves us, each year, I announce it proudly, without prompting. Sometimes, without apparent relevance.

When it comes to paying attention to detail, efficiency and innovation, the Japanese are unrivalled. Junko considers the rest of her countrymen to be slackers. She spends hours researching and strategizing special offers, rebates, in-store specials and coupons until she's certain to save more than she spends. She not only surpasses the highest shopping and saving standards, she one-ups us native North Americans at our own game because if it's the thought that counts, her gifts are among the most valuable ever given.

We enjoy many other perks from Junko's constant scrimping and saving: a constant stream of rebate cheques, free movie tickets, our butts get to experience a wide variety of toilet paper, a junk food cupboard that is always full, a junk food cupboard!, and, of course, we save money.

But there are unexpected consequences, as well: We don't necessarily get the brand of Peanut Butter we grew up with, we are encouraged to use only a small portion of a single paper towel, we use clothing remnants instead of cloth napkins at the dinner table, depending upon the specials in the produce aisle we may be eating a wide assortment of zucchini and eggplant dishes for a few weeks, and we never get Pop Tarts. And also, she is incredibly difficult to buy for because:

• She shops almost every day and knows all the prices. I must be prepared to defend every purchase.

• She's very conscious of the total amount spent and as the price rises so does her blood pressure. Followed by mine.

• If my gift passes all the other tests, I must still be prepared to hear that she has a coupon for that item and will not be satisfied until I return it, then re-purchase it with the coupon.

• For it to truly be a gift, I must include a trip back to the store to return it. Bought it online and already unboxed it? Well, not only can she get that precision-packed item back into its original box but, if we're paying the shipping, she'll demonstrate to the manufacturer how it could be safely packed into something smaller.

Last Christmas, the only gifts of mine that she did not ask me to return were a spatula I put in her stocking and cute little gift certificates I made for free massages—which she never redeemed, presumably because she knows exactly how long a free massage lasts and where it leads. I considered it a win.

This Christmas, I lucked out and found a great book that I know she really could use. It cost a hundred dollars and is non-returnable, but I feel confident. It's called, "How to Argue Logically, for Dummies."

This is going to be the best Christmas ever!

Sure to promote a healthy dialogue with my wife.

_______________________________

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Forcibly Ejected from My Sister's 50th!

Rather than just filing away all the little scripts, speeches, jokes and graphics that I am forced to create so that my kids can participate in the year-end home schooler's Christmas pageant, friends can turn a year older and their kids can get married and/or graduate, I thought I'd start posting them, so that others can adapt them  for their own needs. Feel free to take and reuse anything that works for you.

My sister, Lindy, turned 50 in August. And, with typical disregard for what a person might actually want, family and friends plotted to ensnare her with a surprise party. 

A surprise party is to me a way to turn what might have been a nice, quiet, relaxing, enjoyable time into an embarrassing, noisy obligation. They are also, ironically, predictable and thus notoriously difficult to pull off anywhere near the time of the event they are celebrating. My sister Lindy is known to have a quick and keen mind and the only way we could think of to keep her off the scent was for us all to act suspicious for the entire monty of July. She would certainly know that we were up to something, but we were determined to surprise her with the when, where and the what of it. In the end, the biggest surprise of this party was that we accomplished that.

At the first meeting of the planning committee someone suggested an election theme and the idea instantly caught fire. It seemed pertinent, given the outrageous election antics happening in the US, and pretty much everyone who encounters my sister suggests that she go into politics. She is a take-charge, cut-to-the-heart-of-the-problem person, and kind of brilliant, and everyone knows that whatever she's involved in will run logically, efficiently and successfully. In fact, amongst all her closest associates, she's the one who plans almost all of the major events. This is why we spent the rest of the meeting standing around asking, "What would Lindy do?" We were tempted to call her, but we all knew that Lindy would never have done that.

I wasn't asked to contribute a speech or write a play. Instead, I was assigned the role of a Freelance Reporter who would capture the "Candidate's" arrival at "Campaign Headquarters." Her sons donned dark suits and sunglasses and played Secret Service bodyguards. In this role, they ignored my credentials, curtailed my freedom of the press and physically removed me from their path during the candidate's arrival. I got it all on video!

Here is the link to the video: https://youtu.be/Hbt08LDfURI

I was also asked to create all the election signs, banners and birthday posters which I present to you in the pictures below. I put out an email call to all the invitees and collected as many of the worst pictures of her as I could. I think the signs came out looking pretty dorky, if I do say so myself. Maybe something here will work for a party you are planning. 

Warning!: Some of this material is not politically correct... but then, when have politics and correctness ever mingled? Feel free to flex your internet troll finger muscles, if you think that will have some sort of affect on something.

The man in this picture is her husband.

Lindy home schools her own, as well as several other, kids
and in her classroom RTFQ means:
 "Read The Freak'in Question!"

Anyway, Vote Lindy!

I also made about 50 posters for the event. Here are the ones that contained original material or ideas...

 

_______________________________

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