Secret Santas

My family is kind of past the gift giving stage. At least for us. I definitely don't have money and my brothers make more than they know what to do with so they can buy whatever they want. Instead I participated in a few Secret Santa gift exchanges and that gives me my fill of trying to buy for people. I had three this year. One with the girls from church. It was a generic exchange (no specific names) so I bought one of the awesome gift packs from Starbucks and contributed that. In exchange I got a mini cupcake maker. One of those appliances. I think if I wasn't moving and trying to get rid of stuff I would be more excited because it IS a cool gift. Unfortunately I'm just thinking of what to do with it while I'm gone. Oh well.

The second exchange was with the French Club Executive Members. I got my friend Jenelle who is a history major with a French minor (like me). I had a heck of a time finding something. After visiting Chapters three times I finally went to the little local independent bookseller in town and the owner hooked me up with a great book in about five seconds. It is a book of "Britishisms" and she LOVED it. Turns out she's on a huge British kick right now so it was perfect. In exchange I got a book called "Mugged by a Moose: True Tales to make you Laugh, Chortle, Snicker and Feel Inspired". It will sit prominently on my bookshelf in Georgia :D

The last exchange was with my Starbucks coworkers. I drew Matt who is a newish barista so I had to do some work to figure out what to get him. He and his wife are expecting a daughter in February so I went with that theme and made them this picture for the nursery. It's in the colours he described and he was very happy with it. I also threw in some home made cookies, because who doesn't love cookies?

Josh had my name which made it the easiest gift to buy ever (his words but it's true). He is a music major and he's been teaching me about classical music over the past year or so. He bought me a boxed set of the complete works of Sibelius. He gave it to me at 5am Monday morning when we were just starting our shift and I was SO excited. I've been enjoying it immensely ever since and I keep trying to tell people about it but no one understands how awesome it is...except him. But that's okay.

So there we go, it's a week before Christmas and my giving and receiving is done. I kind of like it this way. Less stress and I still had fun.