Cousin Gifting

The gift-giving went over well today. Being as I'm obsessed with finding the perfect gift, I should have left myself more time to wander around Target before I had to make the hour-long drive up to my aunt & uncle's house in the North Bay. But, alas, I never leave myself enough time to do anything (and that's why I'm up at 3:30am finishing up freelance projects and taking a break to blog and wake myself up a bit).

So I was late to dinner, but I think I made up for my tardiness with the gifts. I got my cousins (age 4 and 6) a kid's acoustic guitar and a keyboard. They were not too expensive, about $35 each with tax, and they actually seemed to be of fairly decent quality for kid's toy instruments.

I was really anxious about my aunt hating the gifts. She's the one who told me that the kids "have everything" and that she doesn't want any gifts that would be annoying to clean up (or, I assume, make a lot of noise.)

But being that she's a musical-type, I figured I couldn't go too wrong with musical instruments. And lucky for me, she loved the gifts. The kids seemed pretty excited about them too, though I forgot to get batteries for the keyboard (doh).

A few minutes after I gave the kids the gifts, my aunt handed me my "belated birthday gift" -- a check for $50. I really didn't want to take it. I mean, I can use the cash, of course, but it almost felt like I was being reimbursed for buying her kids gifts.

I wish I came from a family that gave actual gifts. The check is fine, money is good, but... it'd be nice to get a gift certificate for a spa or something... so I'd be forced to spend the money and not put it away into savings.

Wait... that's bad logic.