Christmas Presents
This Christmas I really enjoyed seeing what our children bought for their siblings and Steve and me now that they can do their own shopping. Each gift showed that they thought about what the person likes and then combined it with their own interests.
Some highlights: Ethan, our 21-year-old son who is a film production major at San Francisco State, went next door to State to shop at Stonestown Galleria. Ethan and his dad share a love of movies, so it’s no surprise that Steve unwrapped a DVD from Ethan. We don’t take it personally that he chose “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” after all, it’s the classic spaghetti western that according to Ethan, should be in the collection of any serious film aficionado.
For me, Ethan bought a book called Inventory by people who write the A.V. Club for The Onion. It’s a book of lists such as “7 terrible movies on the top 100 all-time box-office hits list” and “15 really good bands with really bad names.” He’s hoping it will give me a crash course in the pop culture world that he inhabits.
Valerie, 17, avoids malls (unless it’s the gleaming, upscale San Francisco Centre) but loves antique stores. Fortunately, Petaluma has plenty of them so that’s where she headed for her Christmas shopping. She bought Steve a 1950’s 35 mm Argus range-finder camera. Although still functional, she brought it because she knows it would make her dad happy to look up from his computer and see this well-crafted old piece of technology.
Jennifer is the only one of the three who isn’t old enough to drive so she put her creativity to use in making hand-crafted gifts. I got an embroidered felt key chain and Steve got a polar bear and penguin vignette (think Hallmark Card store) that she had crafted out of Scupley – a brand of bake-able clay.
Barbies and Legos are great but Christmas is a lot more fun when personalities shine through.
