Christmas in October!

I have been kind of down lately about how REALLY small our Christmas budget is this year (remember the don't spend any money unless you absolutely have to strategy?). We were going through and setting our budget, and I hesitantly asked Rick what he thought we should spend on Harrison. I know that Christmas isn't about presents and toys and I know that he's too young to care about it, much less remember, but I was excited about shopping for him for the first time. Last year he was 3 weeks old at Christmas and we didn't really get him anything. This year he's going to have a blast ripping into all the paper and crawling all over the boxes. I braced myself for his answer, thinking he'd say something like $50-$100. So no surprise that I was completely taken aback and slightly disappointed when Rick said we should cap his gift budget at......wait for it......$20. Twenty. Dollars. Which would get him one dinky toy and that's about it. Sure, Harrison wouldn't know the difference. But how was I going to have fun shopping the toy aisles with only a $20 bill to spend? And I guess it would have to have a to Harrison, love Mom & Dad AND Santa gift tag on it. We joked about it a lot, but at the same time I also knew that it was a pretty realistic limit that I couldn't rationalize arguing with. And that made me a little sad.

A few weeks ago, my mom asked me if we had plans for anything Saturday, and since we didn't, she told me to pencil her in on the calendar. All she would tell me was that she had a surprise and that she and Tim would be watching Harrison while Rick and I were doing whatever she had planned for us. Well, I'm not exactly a fan of surprises. I tried to get it out of her, and I'm really shocked that she didn't give in because she is seriously the worst secret keeper ever. The only hint she gave us was that we should wear comfy clothes and shoes and that it wasn't at a specific time of the day. Rick & I racked our brains trying to figure out what it could be. Couldn't be a game or a concert or anything requiring tickets because she didn't specify a time. He suggested maybe it was a trip to the zoo, but why would we not want to take Harrison? Finally he was convinced that they were going to babysit while she put us to work doing their lawn and other maintenance projects around their house, ha ha!

Well when we got over there, they handed us a card (handmade by "Anderson Enterprises," nice touch!) that explained how even more special Christmas is once you become parents and the joy of toy shopping for your child for the first time. And then they gave us a bunch of cash and sent us out for the day to do some hard core Christmas shopping for Harrison! And can I just say that it felt like Christmas for me? It was a blast looking at all of the toys and picturing how much fun he would have opening them up and playing with them on Christmas morning. Not to mention how much fun Rick and I had playing with them while we were in the store -- we seriously spent the day acting like two goofy kids without a care in the world. And it was so nice to not have to relentlessly scrutinize over every single penny going out of my pocket like I usually do. Sidenote* - with all of the running around we did from store to store I had forgotten how much easier it is to go places without a baby in tow. Seriously! I want to kick myself for taking that freedom for granted all those years. :)

Thank you so much, Mom & Tim! It was such a great surprise and a very thoughtful gesture. And Harrison will thank you too come Christmas morning -- he got quite the hook up!


*And yes, I DO realize that this entire blog is just one rambling sidenote after another and therefore warning you of an upcoming digression is pretty pointless. And that typing a footnote about my rambling sidenotes is ironically yet another sidenote. Somebody just needs to slap me.