#91 All I Want for Christmas....

Dear Daughter -

I'm writing this letter to you in the journal to make it more real than if I said it over the phone.  You always want hints for gifts - well here's a command.

This is what I want for Christmas:  I want 5 or so gifts, costing no more than $2 or so each.  They should each be different. They can be garage sale items, something you made, discards from your home, but not jokey.  I want them wrapped prettily, in different papers.  I would like each of them to include a short personal note from you.  And here's the most important part - I want them mailed at intervals, like two days apart, some before and some after Christmas, so they arrive over a space of maybe 2 weeks.

This will entail some work for you, but that's what I want.  I LOVE finding surprises in the mail!  Your major cost and effort should be in the wrapping and periodic mailing - that's the real gift.

Now for a few hints:  I like those little soluble sheets of breath freshener in the snap-open plastic cases, but they are hard to find around here (they're usually next to the cash registers).  My Christmas tree is Victorian - silver and gold and lace and pearls and glass.  I don't much care for scented candles, but I like incense.  Whatever happened to Tasti-Cakes? (Sp?)  If they exist, I like the butterscotch ones.  I like dark butterscotch candy in general (not the yellow crap), and the regular mix of JellyBelly jellybeans.  I'm still looking for that cheap WalMart lipstick from a few entries back.  I like those itty-bitty flat flashlights that you can put on keyrings.  I had a dishmop - it's like an oldfashioned cotton string floormop but smaller, on a wire stick - that I loved, but the plastic handle part fell off, and all the grocery store currently has are sponge ones.  I dearly love cheap bubblebath (the stuff that comes in jugs - I like to make it "glug" when I pour it in the tub - if it's the "good" stuff, I hesitate to use as much as I really want to), but that might be too expensive to mail.  I could use some pretty-but-not-cutsy simple fat elastic bands for pony tails - mostly in the black gray brown white green color ranges.   If you see any of the type where you overlap the balls, but with something other than balls, they'd be nice too.  Knee-high patterned "pants socks" in black, tan, or "skin-color".  (Discount shoe stores frequently have them really cheap.)  My mechanical pencils take 0.5 mm lead.  My stapler takes standard Swingline staples.  I don't need any soap - I have a backlog of nice scented stuff.  Don't need gloves or scarves or calendars - although a 2-year calendar booklet for my purse would be handy.  The ones I'm thinking of are about the length and width of a hand.   

The above applies to all gift-giving occasions. 

Love,

Mom