Prezzies? Rezzies?

A homeschooling loop I'm on had two threads going on Christmas day: one on worst presents received, one on best.

The worst started out as someone posting about some massively inappropriate gift her small child had been given. I think minor explosives may have been involved.

The other thread pretty much explains itself, and I thought it was kind of nice to see grownups admitting that they like getting gifts. Christmas has only comparatively recently turned into a holiday that many adults think should be all about kids getting stuff. It used to be a drinking and gaming day, which is why some early American colonists were so against it. So I think grownups should demand their fair share of the fun. I don't mean going too far back to its roots and starting off the day with the announcement that, hey, it's five o'clock somewhere. I just mean that our kids and other loved ones should do something toward making it as fun a day for us as we try to make it for them.

So I thought it would be nice to start a "thread" here about what the grownups got on whatever gift-giving holiday they may have celebrated recently. Don't tell me everything, because frankly I'm not interested. But do give me some highlights.

To start things off right: my son gave me (carefully sealed up in a red and green envelope of his own making, and closed, as he was careful to point out in writing, "with see-throo™ Tape-o-rama™!") the latest installment of the adventures of the Ninja Reindeer. Yes, I received the only existing copy of "Attack of the Choc-o-hater!" You're just going to have to live without knowing all the details, but suffice it to say that Ginger and Berry outwit the evil Dr. Bratwurst yet again, and are rewarded by being invited by the CEO of Brown's Brownies to a brownie feast.

My husband made an impressive showing:  with just a little money and a lot of looking, he managed to get me a used copy in very good condition of an out-of-print book I very much wanted. It's a collection of poems that Jane Austen and her clever family wrote, mostly to one another as gifts, jokes, or tokens of love. It may not sound exciting, but it used to be much more common to dash off verse to loved ones. Some of the poems are very funny, such as the one Austen's brother James wrote to his wife on behalf of the family cat, who is very bitter about being accused of ruining the bread just because he "slept a little on the dough." He is now threatening to go on strike, and not eat another mouse or rat until the housekeeper apologizes to him for the insult to his character. There is another more somber poem by this brother about his sister Jane after her too-early death. He praises her writing, adding that though the world may know her talent in that realm, "to her family alone/Her real and genuine worth was known." It's a beautiful book, and the only thing that made me happier than finding it under the tree was knowing that it had cost much more in patience and ingenuity than it had in cash.

Speaking of ingenuity, he also gave me two gift certificates for one-pound boxes of chocolate creams at See's candy. He's learned from long experience that half the ones he picks out for me himself will turn out to be something deeply horrifying and filled with icky purple goo. Far better to let me choose for myself, and have only myself to blame if I don't get exactly what I want.

I'd also like to hear the most ghastly, horrifying gifts that you or anyone in your family received. My husband, who is still (but just barely) my husband in spite of this, gave my son and I a pair of squirrel underpants. With a picture of a squirrel wearing them. Apparently he thought that the whole chocolate-and-literature gift-giving thing was heading him toward dangerously classy territory. You may not outdo this one, but please share anyway.

I read on a blog whose name I wish I could remember that it's better to set goals at this time of the year than to make resolutions. I'd like to hear other people's advice on this topic, or goals or resolutions of their own; and if it's of any interest of all, here are my goals for 2009, in no particular order:

1. I will try not to spend the entire first month of the year mourning aloud that it's already two thousand and nine and I hadn't even gotten used to writing 2008 yet.

2. I will work toward a sensible system of housework, whereby I'm not the only one doing all of it. I will both ask for and accept help, and will also if necessary get "Stop being such a #%&%ing control freak!" tattooed on prominent parts of my anatomy.

3. I will not threaten to napalm my apartment neighbors (at least within their hearing), no matter how much they drive me crazy by hogging everything in the laundry room and taking my wet duds out of the washer before any of the dryers are free and HOW EXACTLY DOES THAT HELP ANYONE, WHEN THEY CAN'T PUT THEIR STUFF IN THE DRYER BEFORE ALL MINE IS DONE ANYWAY???

4. I will water my balcony plants regularly, change the hummingbird's sugar water at least two or three times a week, and try not to kill my virtual Chia pet more than once a month.

5. I will gradually organize my time so that my own homeschooling -- the reading, French language study, and music practice I'm trying to have as a regular part of my life -- is as much a priority as my son's. I will stop expecting time to work on these subjects to just fall magically into my lap.

6. I will way less gradually organize my time so that the magazine actually gets out on something like a regular basis.

7. I will watch the entire available body of "Angel" episodes, so that I'll know what the heck is going on in certain "Buffy" episodes.

8. I will not celebrate only getting that previous goal accomplished as a real accomplishment.

9. I will accept and rejoice in the fact that my life is a work in progress.
 
So? How 'bout you?