day of the Dads
Dec. 23rd, 2005 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabWe received presents today from both my dad and S's dad.
My dad sent us food. Always useful :D He and my stepmother usually order stuff to be sent directly from online/catalog places to all their assorted children, and it's frequently food. After all, it's not like any of us don't eat! Which is OK, because I also have food for him, which I will be bringing up to them sometime next week. Sugar-free meringues that diabetics can eat. And they're low-fat, so people who have recently had heart attacks and quintuple bypass surgery can eat them. With so many kids and grandkids and a few great-grandkids to give presents to, my family usually takes it fairly easy on presents for the adults. (I have 10 living assorted siblings, 36 nieces and nephews, and 2 great-nephews, with a 37th niece or nephew and a third great-nephew-or-niece due in the spring. My gifts this year for the adults are knitted slipper-socks. The under-16 bunch is getting mainly books. I am not giving gifts to every single one of all of the above people - just the ones that we'll be seeing at sometime in the couple of weeks.
Our xmas day schedule is to go down to my brother G's house, about 45 minutes south of here. It'll be us, G, his wife J and her son, and mostly her family for the rest of the crowd. The rest of my family will be up at my sister's place in Phila., including the 'rents - and my brother JJ and one of his daughters will be flying into there from CA on Thursday next. So we'll drive up Thursday and do the whole xmas thing all over again with all of them. And that gives me a chance to go over with G our actual xmas present to our dad, something besides the meringues - we are getting him a recliner. BUT, we aren't actually getting it for him yet. What we're offering him is the chance to go shopping for one, which we'll split the cost of, after dad and stepM finish moving. No point in buying them a piece of furniture right now!
Anyway, the other package today was from S's dad, W. W collects clocks. He has probably well over 60 antique clocks in his den. Large ones, small ones. Generally not grandfather clocks - he prefers wall clocks and desk clocks. Some are unique, some are just cute, some are very valuable and fragile, some are only mildly valuable and mildly fragile. He sent us one of his clocks. It was in a very large box. Open the large box, dig through styrofoam peanuts, find medium box. Open medium box, unwrap bubble wrap, find small styrofoam box. Which is the original packaging for the Atmos clock contained within. An Atmos!!! Now we have to figure out where to put it - one doesn't just set an Atmos on an end table where the cat can get at it. Wow.
Oh yeah, better call the insurance agent and add this to our separate personal property policy - gotta add the baritone sax too, while I'm at it, and I suppose the Solstice presents we got each other - I got S a GPS unit which mounts on a motorcycle as well as in a car, and the special mounting hardware for said motorcycle; S got me a Yamaha MIDI keyboard and Finale Allegro software. I suppose it's a sign that my brain is irrevocably numbers-oriented and bureaucratic that I think "insurance policy" when I get expensive gifts. Sigh. Oh well, I'm useful to have around.
Now back to finishing knitting.
My dad sent us food. Always useful :D He and my stepmother usually order stuff to be sent directly from online/catalog places to all their assorted children, and it's frequently food. After all, it's not like any of us don't eat! Which is OK, because I also have food for him, which I will be bringing up to them sometime next week. Sugar-free meringues that diabetics can eat. And they're low-fat, so people who have recently had heart attacks and quintuple bypass surgery can eat them. With so many kids and grandkids and a few great-grandkids to give presents to, my family usually takes it fairly easy on presents for the adults. (I have 10 living assorted siblings, 36 nieces and nephews, and 2 great-nephews, with a 37th niece or nephew and a third great-nephew-or-niece due in the spring. My gifts this year for the adults are knitted slipper-socks. The under-16 bunch is getting mainly books. I am not giving gifts to every single one of all of the above people - just the ones that we'll be seeing at sometime in the couple of weeks.
Our xmas day schedule is to go down to my brother G's house, about 45 minutes south of here. It'll be us, G, his wife J and her son, and mostly her family for the rest of the crowd. The rest of my family will be up at my sister's place in Phila., including the 'rents - and my brother JJ and one of his daughters will be flying into there from CA on Thursday next. So we'll drive up Thursday and do the whole xmas thing all over again with all of them. And that gives me a chance to go over with G our actual xmas present to our dad, something besides the meringues - we are getting him a recliner. BUT, we aren't actually getting it for him yet. What we're offering him is the chance to go shopping for one, which we'll split the cost of, after dad and stepM finish moving. No point in buying them a piece of furniture right now!
Anyway, the other package today was from S's dad, W. W collects clocks. He has probably well over 60 antique clocks in his den. Large ones, small ones. Generally not grandfather clocks - he prefers wall clocks and desk clocks. Some are unique, some are just cute, some are very valuable and fragile, some are only mildly valuable and mildly fragile. He sent us one of his clocks. It was in a very large box. Open the large box, dig through styrofoam peanuts, find medium box. Open medium box, unwrap bubble wrap, find small styrofoam box. Which is the original packaging for the Atmos clock contained within. An Atmos!!! Now we have to figure out where to put it - one doesn't just set an Atmos on an end table where the cat can get at it. Wow.
Oh yeah, better call the insurance agent and add this to our separate personal property policy - gotta add the baritone sax too, while I'm at it, and I suppose the Solstice presents we got each other - I got S a GPS unit which mounts on a motorcycle as well as in a car, and the special mounting hardware for said motorcycle; S got me a Yamaha MIDI keyboard and Finale Allegro software. I suppose it's a sign that my brain is irrevocably numbers-oriented and bureaucratic that I think "insurance policy" when I get expensive gifts. Sigh. Oh well, I'm useful to have around.
Now back to finishing knitting.
