Rock, Paper, Scissors: Who am I Buying Christmas For?

As the kids get older, some of our Christmas traditions have to be modified accordingly. Tonight's yearly foray into family gift getting was one of the more memorable.

For the last several years, we have drawn names out of a hat to see who gets to buy a present for which family member. We have seven of us in our family, so as the kids get older, it gets more difficult to figure out how we're going to do it, especially because we all go shopping in the same store!

This year we couldn't figure out who got to pick out of the hat (it was actually a bowl this time) first, so we all sat around the table and played rock, paper, scissors. Our right hands competed against the left hands of the family member at our right, and vice versa. If the opposing hand beat your hand, you pulled that hand out, and your remaining hand (unless you lost both hands) competed against the remaining hand(s) of the family member to your left and right.

It actually worked pretty well. The hand left standing--mine--got to draw a name first, and then we went around the table clockwise. That was the easy part.

The price limit this year, taking into consideration the effects of inflation, was $15. The time limit once we entered the doors of the Payson, Utah Wal Mart was 30 minutes. And we couldn't buy anything that was made in China....yeah, right ;-)

We did pretty well with the price limit. I went with my oldest and youngest sons. Surprisingly all three of us knew exactly what we wanted to get for one daughter, one son, and my wife, and we were done in 15 minutes. But the rest of them?...I could have done all the rest of my Christmas shopping by the time they got done.

But my daughter said it was my fault that they took so long, and my wife said it's because I don't hunt and fix things like most men do (it's because I read and blog like a drunken sailor). I told her she could have bought me some tools as a hint...

Comments

School Vouchers: "The Bramble Memo"

$429 million? What? Where? The legislative fiscal analyst for the State of Utah calculated the costs to the public schools over the next 13 years if school vouchers are implemented. It said the costs would be $5.5M in the first year, and $71M in the 13th year. Suddenly, the number I have started seeing thrown around was $429 million, the total costs for vouchers over 13 years. Where did that number come from? Enter the mysterious "Bramble Memo". In the past few days several of us (Jeremy, Utah Taxpayer, Craig, Sara, Urban Koda, Jesse, and me) have (sometimes?) enjoyed a lively discussion about school vouchers in Utah . Jeremy clarified to me the costs of the venture by linking to a copy of the Utah Legislative Fiscal Analyst's Impartial Analysis (LFA) of the costs of Vouchers , found on "The Senate Site". In my previous voucher article, I quoted some of Lavar Webb's article from last Sunday's Deseret News, wherein he stated that those total costs ...

Why Do Liberals Coddle the Radical Islamic Monster?

Many liberals and progressives in the United States and elsewhere support a radical Islamic fundamentalist movement which, if it came to power, would quickly wipe out their liberal progressive ideology. Why then, do so many liberals coddle the monster that would destroy them? The Answer lies in their long-stemmed hatred of Western liberty and free markets. Dick Morris' new revelation of Hillary Clinton's ties to Islamic fundamentalist terrorism provides an excellent backdrop for me to ask the question that Greg Allen of The Right Balance has been asking for quite some time, to wit: If many liberals stand for free sexuality, homosexuality, the use of drugs, binge drinking, and other mindless expressions of individuality, why do so many of them also look the other way when it comes to Islamic fundamentalism? Don't they know that Iran has put to death as many as 4,000 homosexuals? Don't they know that if Islamists come to power they will not only make sexual perversi...

The Inhumanity of Bob Lonsberry: Waterboarding, Concentration Camps, and the the Bataan Death March

KNRS 570 radio talk show host Bob Lonsberry advocated waterboarding and other forms of torture during his show on April 21, 2009. More grotesquely, he was beaming with pride about his advocacy campaign. It's difficult to imagine then, that, by the same rationale, had Lonsberry been a German at the time of Hitler, or a Japanese during the Bataan Death March, that he would not have advocated torture of Jews in the concentration camps or the bayoneting and shooting of American soldiers on the Bataan trail. Torture, Torture, Everywhere! Nearly 80,000 American soldiers were captured by the Japanese in the To contemplate a discussion about whether or not torture is legal or whether it even works, it is first required to come to the conclusion that 'I am a child of God, but my adversary is a monkey'. Phillipines in 1942 and forced to march with no food and very little water for six days. If a man stumbled, if he didn't respond quickly to a command, or if he tried to get wat...

Simple Utah Mormon Politics

Search This Blog