This Christmas I got a box of cereal! It’s “collectible” Christmas Capt’n Crunch, a gift from my mother. And she emphasized how “collectible” it was. I don’t even like Cap’n Crunch, even if it is dyed red and green. Who collects cereal?
She also gave me a dollar-store box of popcorn made in china flavored with peppermint. By peppermint I think they mean lead. By popcorn I think they mean melamine. It doesn’t even look quite right. Anyone here want a box of popcorn?
Mom is good for giving me things I hate and can’t use. Then I have to lie about how nice it is. This year I got even. She set aside an egg plate at the antique shop to buy when she got her paycheck. I went in there and bought it and had the ladies play dumb about where it went. Then I bought the fugliest egg plate in the store, a little powder-blue milkglass with gaudy gold trim… something that screams ‘little old lady’. I gave her the ugly one first & hid the other box. She opened the fugly and I told her the antique shop said it was the one she had on hold. She said “um, it’s too pretty to use…” Everyone else in the room knew what I did and we’re all trying not to laugh. I made her tell me how nice it was and where she’d display it. At the end of the day as we’re opening the last gifts, I handed her the real egg plate to open. You should’ve seen the look on her face, and then I explained what I had done.
I think the buggy yak cheese is pretty high on the winners list overall. Remind me not to come to your house for Christmas!
I’d also be weirded out by the gift of a farm animal bought in my name. I’m all in favor of feeding 3rd world nations but sometimes there’s a a good reason that their culture never imported such-and-such animal before. (Good book to read is “Guns Germs and Steel” which explains why some cultures seemed to be so much more advanced and some even today choose to live a hunter-gatherer life) Let’s not Americanize everyone to raising what we do. Kind of reminds me of the wonderful work Monsanto et al are doing in 3rd world nations: they get farmers to drop local crops that have been raised for 1000s of year. Replace with Monsanto corn & wheat. Except the corporation only sends them terminator hybrids which intentionally produce infertile seed. Subsistence farmers are now spending every cent they have buying the seed each spring and they’re worse off now then they were before! Ugh. Ok, I’ll get off my soapbox now, sorry. 
I LOVE the flannel sleepwear. Send it my way. Honestly I’d be happy if someone bought me a bag of the socks I like. Or some new underwear. I like gifts I can use.
I also want the Wonky Waker. It’s tacky but very funny. When it stopped amusing me, I’d regift it to someone else and make them tell me how nice the gift was. Same goes for the 4’ trout pillow…a fun re-gift! :lol:
Happy holidays, everyone!
).
:lol: