Outside the Gift Box

After all the hustle and bustle of the season, it’s time for the most relaxing part—gift wrapping. Let your creativity soar by matching paper and bows, name tags and ribbons, or not. I’ve seen at least one person wrap gifts in newspaper. Once you’ve shelled out the money for gifts, free newspaper or brown paper bags for wrapping gifts fit right into the shopping budget. And for those of us too pooped to wrap, we can always replace wrapping with those amazing, decorated gift bags.

The worse part of wrapping is tackling the awkward, oddly shaped item that reveals itself as soon as the recipient spots it. There’s no way to disguise those gifts. If you’re giving a car this year, don’t bother wrapping it, settle for the traditional, oversized bow. And if you’re wrapping something like this, just do your best:  

                                     https://youtu.be/jm3dm5J5r0A

 On Facebook, someone posted a message that mentioned how every year their Christmas list gets shorter because they want more and more things that money can’t buy. What’s the gift you want for someone that could never be wrapped?     

Where Are You Now?

Relationships float through different stages. Last week, I overheard an interesting exchange between a parent and a couple of kids. The parent kept making funny faces and singing popular songs written long before the kids were born. Judging by the kids’ expressions, they wanted no part of the performance. Undeterred by their eye-rolls, the parent added to the torture by singing off-key.

After several minutes, one of the kids pulled a question from the childhood memory files. Questions always make good diversions. The kid said to the parent, “Do you want to play a game?” The second kid followed up with, “Yeah, let’s play the quiet game.” How many times had the kids had fallen for the “quiet game” tactic? Eventually kids will borrow their parents’ tricks and criticize parenting logic. Watch this:

                                         https://youtu.be/GadAQd1IAzk

As kids grow up, they’ll offer their parents advice on everything from fashions and hairstyles to insurance and investments. Through the usual ups and downs of life, parent-child relationships deepen and evolve. What’s your most important relationship and how has it developed?              

Three Little Words

Three little words, when spoken by a female, can strike fear in the heart of her male companion. During the first stage of fear, the male will exhibit a vacant stare. He wants to be somewhere else, anywhere that’s not within hearing distance of those three little words. These next three “words”  may shock you because they should not be coming from this mouth:

                                         http://youtu.be/qXo3NFqkaRM

 How did the dog owners determine that Mishka had human speaking abilities and what will Mishka say next? There’s something about a “talking” dog that makes me uncomfortable. It’s probably the same uncomfortable feeling males get when they hear their female companions say the three little words—hold my purse.   

 Every day we get a barrage of information that makes us feel uncomfortable. We’re flooded with environmental, social, financial and political problems with each news story. Does it feel like we're waiting for someone to say the magic words to fix everything? When you’re in the middle of a situation, what three little words help keep you steady?