my favorite gift this year

Some very wonderful friends have just moved away.

I wanted to do something to say just how sad I am that we won’t be neighbors anymore, how much I will miss them, and how much I’ve appreciated having them around.  What with all this holiday business, my floodgates of spend are wi-i-ide open and in fine form; I figured that I’d find something great to buy them.  But instead, I had a wonderful idea that I think I like better than any of the Christmas gifts I’ve gathered.

Rather than telling them how about how sad I feel and how that sadness equates to love, I clevered up a plan to tell them about how much fun they’ll have exploring a new home.

I polled some friends on Facebook to get opinions, did some scouring of Yelp, and started buying gift certificates for places that they might like to check out in their new town.  I go two for yarn stores, two for rock climbing gyms, a book store, a movie theater, a coffee shop and a mobile food truck.  All local, independent places – so I largely had to make calls and talk to people on the phone (dislike!) to get them, but I really love the idea of taking part in helping them get out there and get to know about neat places in the area.

After a particularly creative flurry, I also drew my own card!  Drawing is a thing I do largely never.  Although my mother would probably disagree and reference this series of dad cartoons I created in 1987.
Anyway.  I drew a card!

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m pretty sure that you could probably tell what this is… right?

It’s a dinosaur exploring his new cave!

So now I am full of that hooray feeling of happy that comes from good gifting.