Skip to main content

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

Popular posts from this blog

Red Clothing and Resurrection: Jesus Christ's Second Coming

The scriptures teach that when Christ comes again to the earth, that he will be wearing red apparel. Why red ? They also teach that at Christ's coming, many of the dead will become resurrected. Will this only include members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Not by a long shot, no matter what some Mormon might tell you.

To Have the Compassion of an Ogre

At least when it comes to using government as a weapon of compassion, I have the compassion of the ogre. I will explain below why I think government cannot and should not be in the business of compassion. The force of government has caused many people to show less compassion to their fellow men. On the other hand, some of the best things happen when government is not compassionate. In such circumstances, individuals personally begin to display more compassion. One such instance of this happened recently in Utah when the governor asked the legislature to convene a special session in order to (among other things) provide special monies to pay for dental care for the disabled . If they didn't fund the governor's compassion project, it would make the legislators look even more heartless in a year where the budget surplus was projected to be at least $150 million. In spite of these political odds, the legislature did not grant the $2 million that 40,000 members of the disabled

The Legend of Enkidu and Shamhat: Wait!...Did I just Read About Adam and Eve???

The story of Enkidu and Shamhat seems similar to that of Adam and Eve.  See what similarities you can find in my description of the story of Enkidu, Shamhat, and Enkidu's alter-ego, Gilgamesh below.