Christmas
Haven't used this in a while. Largely in part because no one uses it anymore. Ah well.
This year was the first Christmas without Gram, who passed back in July. It went as well as it could have. She was remembered fondly... gifts were wrapped with bows Gram hand-made years upon years ago. Mom decorated her house because Gram would've wanted it that way. Grandpa got a couple of new firearms (his newest hobby since Gram's passing is recreational shooting) and Mom commented how as he looked them over like an excited little kid she could see Gram sitting there shaking her head. Gram was remembered with happiness and fond memories rather than sadness and grieving. And I think that's very important for our family as a whole. We're healing.
I'm normally wholly against leaving the house and going anywhere to purchase products or use services on Christmas. I don't believe that anyone who works in an extracurricular or retail field should be working on that day. But this Christmas we made an exception and went shooting at our local range, Shoot Smart. And I think it was a very good decision. Grandpa has been buying up so many firearms in the last few months and goes to the range at least once a week where he lives in Houston. I think he was very happy to get out and shoot with Melissa and I since he has no one to share this hobby with in Houston. He did comment how he would've liked for Dylan to have gone, though.
We used one of their private suites from the new addition they added a while back (I say 'new' because we hadn't been shooting in a looooong time). It was more expensive but I felt it made for a much nicer experience. We were in our own room so there were no other shooters next to us. We could hear each other speak and there was no range officer breathing down our necks. Sure, they have a camera in each suite to make sure people are being safe, but in the two hours we were there a range officer only knocked on the door once to check up on us, and it was right when we were packing up to leave.
Gift-wise it was a Cardinals Christmas. Between my wife and Grandpa I got a new shirt, jersey (both featuring Adam Wainwright), freezer mug and wallet. The wallet is on backorder and there's a story behind it which I won't go in to all the details of. Long story short, they accidentally shipped an Atlanta Braves wallet to us and we now await the right one. Got a Jake Roberts shirt from my brother and a new gas grill from Mom & Leisa. They also got me a little multi-tool to keep in my pocket and I got a metric butt-ton of Cordial Cherries.
Perhaps the most exciting gift I got came from my wife in the form of a $25 GameStop gift card. It's not the card itself, but what it symbolizes, and I'll explain.
I joked with some of my co-workers a while back that I likely would not be getting another gun until I could afford to get one in full with the points on my Cabela's Card for free. A couple of them told me, "each pay period get a gift card, however much you can spare, and save them until you can get what you want." Sure, it's just saving money towards a goal but keeping it in gift card form makes your commitment to what you want more concrete. Having money just lying around is more likely to get spent on something else. So I explained this plan to my wife one day on the car ride home from work but that I would do this to get the new Xbox One system that just released because I would ultimately get much more use and more value for the money from this console over a gun, seeing as how we use our 360 for virtually everything already.
I shared this with her probably a month ago and had yet to put this plan to action. In my stocking I found this gift card and my wife said, "It's the start of your Xbox One fund." It was particularly exciting because my goal of getting one was no longer just a proposal but was now a plan underway, and more importantly, a plan that my wife approves of. I thought otherwise I would have to wait until tax season and even then, we plan on using the majority of that money to eliminate some debts. There very well may not be much of anything left after we pay those bills. So I'm pretty excited. It's a very cool looking system and I'm looking forward to playing the upgraded, true version of Battlefield on it as well as some of the other games to be released later (Halo, Destiny, etc).
We went to my father-in-law's last night for dinner. They had a hard time coming up with gift ideas... they usually do. In seasons past they would just outright ask Melissa what she wanted and get it. This year they gave us money. My portion will be going to the fund I described above.
I think that's just about it. Bonnie and Jack usually partake in their Christmas festivities around New Years, so we'll be going out to see them sometime around then.
Overall, a good Christmas, I'd say.
This year was the first Christmas without Gram, who passed back in July. It went as well as it could have. She was remembered fondly... gifts were wrapped with bows Gram hand-made years upon years ago. Mom decorated her house because Gram would've wanted it that way. Grandpa got a couple of new firearms (his newest hobby since Gram's passing is recreational shooting) and Mom commented how as he looked them over like an excited little kid she could see Gram sitting there shaking her head. Gram was remembered with happiness and fond memories rather than sadness and grieving. And I think that's very important for our family as a whole. We're healing.
I'm normally wholly against leaving the house and going anywhere to purchase products or use services on Christmas. I don't believe that anyone who works in an extracurricular or retail field should be working on that day. But this Christmas we made an exception and went shooting at our local range, Shoot Smart. And I think it was a very good decision. Grandpa has been buying up so many firearms in the last few months and goes to the range at least once a week where he lives in Houston. I think he was very happy to get out and shoot with Melissa and I since he has no one to share this hobby with in Houston. He did comment how he would've liked for Dylan to have gone, though.
We used one of their private suites from the new addition they added a while back (I say 'new' because we hadn't been shooting in a looooong time). It was more expensive but I felt it made for a much nicer experience. We were in our own room so there were no other shooters next to us. We could hear each other speak and there was no range officer breathing down our necks. Sure, they have a camera in each suite to make sure people are being safe, but in the two hours we were there a range officer only knocked on the door once to check up on us, and it was right when we were packing up to leave.
Gift-wise it was a Cardinals Christmas. Between my wife and Grandpa I got a new shirt, jersey (both featuring Adam Wainwright), freezer mug and wallet. The wallet is on backorder and there's a story behind it which I won't go in to all the details of. Long story short, they accidentally shipped an Atlanta Braves wallet to us and we now await the right one. Got a Jake Roberts shirt from my brother and a new gas grill from Mom & Leisa. They also got me a little multi-tool to keep in my pocket and I got a metric butt-ton of Cordial Cherries.
Perhaps the most exciting gift I got came from my wife in the form of a $25 GameStop gift card. It's not the card itself, but what it symbolizes, and I'll explain.
I joked with some of my co-workers a while back that I likely would not be getting another gun until I could afford to get one in full with the points on my Cabela's Card for free. A couple of them told me, "each pay period get a gift card, however much you can spare, and save them until you can get what you want." Sure, it's just saving money towards a goal but keeping it in gift card form makes your commitment to what you want more concrete. Having money just lying around is more likely to get spent on something else. So I explained this plan to my wife one day on the car ride home from work but that I would do this to get the new Xbox One system that just released because I would ultimately get much more use and more value for the money from this console over a gun, seeing as how we use our 360 for virtually everything already.
I shared this with her probably a month ago and had yet to put this plan to action. In my stocking I found this gift card and my wife said, "It's the start of your Xbox One fund." It was particularly exciting because my goal of getting one was no longer just a proposal but was now a plan underway, and more importantly, a plan that my wife approves of. I thought otherwise I would have to wait until tax season and even then, we plan on using the majority of that money to eliminate some debts. There very well may not be much of anything left after we pay those bills. So I'm pretty excited. It's a very cool looking system and I'm looking forward to playing the upgraded, true version of Battlefield on it as well as some of the other games to be released later (Halo, Destiny, etc).
We went to my father-in-law's last night for dinner. They had a hard time coming up with gift ideas... they usually do. In seasons past they would just outright ask Melissa what she wanted and get it. This year they gave us money. My portion will be going to the fund I described above.
I think that's just about it. Bonnie and Jack usually partake in their Christmas festivities around New Years, so we'll be going out to see them sometime around then.
Overall, a good Christmas, I'd say.