Combo Gifts

My birthday happens to fall on December 28th. Yes, it's three days after Christmas. I have often had people ask me if this is something that was a bummer growing up. For me??? Not so much. My parents always seemed to go above and beyond to make sure that I knew my birthday was still special, even though it was so close to Christmas. They would get me great gifts-NEVER wrapped in Christmas paper, always wrapped in birthday paper. They left the Christmas decorations up for me-if I wanted them to. They never bought me combo gifts-unless it was something really big and special, like the year that they redecorated my bedroom, including a new bed, new linens, paint, etc. If anything, I'll say that I was maybe extra spoiled. I recall my big sister-you may not remember this Adrienne-one time saying "You're so lucky that your birthday is next to Christmas, you must think you're extra special." The truth is, I kind of did!

Now I realize that I'm not extra special, but it is still nice to have separate gifts. On some occasions though, I don't mind. Take tonight, for instance.

I had just been talking to Kevin about how my perfect birthday would be staying overnight in Seattle, having my little brother and sister in law fly in, going to an NFL game with them, and just enjoying some time with them. They are still young and can travel pretty easily, we get along with them so well, and we just love having them around. I knew it was wishful thinking, but I couldn't help but think it would be so fun. I was chatting with Samantha last night, and happened to mention it...little did I know what the future would bring!

Tonight I had a late night. I was out taking a course on online course development, and when I came home Kevin said, "You need to check your email." in a very down tone. "Why, what's up?" I asked. He just kept the same grim tone, and said, you need to check your email, yet again. I got online and saw a few emails, none of which seemed to disastrous. I was like, what's up? He said, "LOOK! LOOK at your emails that you haven't read! I looked again and saw one waiting from my sister-in-law, Samantha. It said:

So I'm sure it's not much fun to have a combined Christmas/Birthday Present, but we thought just this once it would be okay. Let us know what you think.

Attached to the email was an itinerary. An itinerary to fly here...in January! I couldn't believe it! They are coming up here for my birthday/Christmas! They will be arriving on a Saturday night and flying out on a Wednesday. I get them all to myself, and I'm so excited! We're going to look into things and see if we can do that "perfect birthday" I was dreaming of. This is definitely one case where I LOVE the combined gift! Thanks guys! You are amazing!

Neil, Samantha and I in Vancouver in March 2009