An Organized Pack Rat & An Early Old Gift

Sunday my oldest son said he wanted an early Christmas present—ice skates. Now, he knows how much I dislike giving early Christmas presents. My THING is having lots and lots of presents under the tree for him and his brother to open Christmas morning. Although, I will give them each one gift when we get back from our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. But he took the chance anyway, using his little boy voice and calling me Mommy.

I teased him, telling him he could wait until Christmas as it was less than a month away. He then proceeded to tell me, “You’d do it for your favorite son.”

“Well, of course I’d do it for HIM!” I teased.

And on we went with the teasing of who was my favorite son and we even got Austin involved, and he played along. But all during our play-time, I didn’t let on whether I’d buy the skates early or not.

The next morning, while he still slept, I wrote him a check (of course I did, I’m a sucker for my boys) but left the amount blank because I had no idea how much the ice skates cost, but knowing my son, they wouldn’t be on the cheaper end. I called him later and told him to buy the ice skates then fill in the amount on the check and deposit it into his account. He sounded very happy with that plan. Then not even an hour later he texted me that he got his skates and that he loved me!

 That evening he arrived home about twenty minutes after me and I got to see the skates. They are nice, as far as ice skates go, way different than when I was a kid! He even got covers for the blades! All of a sudden I remembered a Christmas gift from about ten years ago that he had never used!

I had him follow me to the garage while I rummaged through a container and voila! I found it! A skate bag…embroidered with HIS name!

“Look! It has your name on it! This has to be at least ten years old. I think I bought it when you were nine. Your dad asked me why I bought it at the time, since you didn’t have any skates, and I said, because it’s so cute! And now you finally have skates! Although, you do have roller blades, duh, so why I didn’t remember this darn thing before is beyond me!”

 “It’s cool.” Dalan said as we put his brand new, early Christmas present into his ten year old Christmas present.

“Now you can carry your skates with just this strap, which is adjustable!” I felt all so proud! And, truth be told, I felt a little redeemed, after all, the damn bag had been a waste for the last ten freaken years! Finally, it was going to get some use! And it wasn’t like I could’ve given it away. I mean, really, WHO would’ve been able to use a bag that had D-A-L-A-N sewn onto the front of it, besides my son, I mean? It’s not a common name. I was also surprised that I knew EXACTLY where it was. Well, no, I wasn’t. I’m an organized Pack Rat.

So, for as much as I don’t like giving early Christmas presents, he actually received TWO! One old new and one new new. So the brat little darling better remember he already got one gift and if his Christmas present pile isn’t as big as his brother’s, I don’t want to hear that Austin is my favorite!