Christmas 2010

 This year I had the best time buying Christmas gifts that I’ve had in years.

I told Kathy a month ago that since we have a new grandson, our daughter will need a rocking chair. She thought this a great idea and while we were making plans to go look for such a chair she got so engaged that she just went and got it herself! Here is the chair she picked out:

Now, meantime I had told Grace that since Kathy was now a Grandmother she would need a rocking chair at our house for when Gabriel was over. Would Grace go with me to pick one out? She did. We put it in the garage, while the other rocking chair was already sitting in our living room.

So, I have two nice rocking chairs picked out for the two Moms and neither know they picked out their own Christmas gift! Am I a genius or what! No one can say, "I hate that color!" or "I would never have picked THAT out!"

So far as I know, neither figured it out either.

Grace picked out a glider with nice puffy cushions.

Kathy picked out a very solid white pine Cracker Barrel model.

For Ben, I got the best gaming wireless earphone/microphone set I could find. It was even licensed for World of War, that he plays. He couldn’t wait to get home and try it out, so I guess that was the ticket for him.

Deborah is exactly half way through her university program to become a 7-12 grade history teacher. She comes by this honestly. Both her grandmother and her grandfather Malehorn were teachers, and her great-grandmother and great-grandfather Malehorn too! My father-in-law wound up a college professor in the teaching department at Eastern Illinois University and authored several published books on the subject. I got Deborah, his Teacher’s Almanac, and two books of teaching ideas for K-3 graders. They are not the right ages for her plans, but I hope she finds them interesting and useful. In any case, how many teaching students can point to their own families’ books on the subject on their book shelves? I also found on sale at just the right time (the time when I realized I’d spent 10 times as much on the others’ gifts as I had on Deborah’s) a wonderful little music/internet/mini-tablet/camera device called an Archos 32 with Android Operating System. I charged the battery and made sure it worked before the date in case I had to send it back. Yep, I am so responsible. I wasn’t playing with it. No sir. Oh, well OK, I admit it was a little fun. OK a lot of fun. I like Android. Think I may upgrade my pocket device to a 5 inch Android device for my next pocket assistant.

Each kid also got a copy of their aunt Janet’s latest book, Betty in the Sky, With a Suitcase!

We got nice, thoughtful gifts too. I can’t tell you how nice it is to have such a wonderful family as I have.