Gift Exchange

I'm not really sure who came up with the idea of a "gift exchange" - also known to some people as a White Elephant party or Chinese Auction. If I were to plan a party, I would NEVER include that as part of it, but that's just my personal preference I guess.

Today, we had our administrative staff holiday luncheon including a gift exchange. We were each to bring in a gift of $20 value and write a one-word clue on the tag. Then you could either shop or steal (in order of your number of course). The lunch was great, and then the gift exchange began. I personally would rather do secret santa or even a regular drawing of names because at least then you know who you are buying for and even if you don't know that person that well, you can always get some ideas from other people of what to get them. But with this, you had to buy a gift that a man or woman in various age ranges would enjoy. It was a lot of pressure!!! :) I was more concerned with getting a good gift that people would want rather than what I ended up with. I like giving much more than getting especially when the whole group is watching you open the present and how you react. And the whole idea of taking from someone else just makes me uncomfortable!

Luckily for me (in my opinon, but probably not in others), I got #3 (which was really #5 bc they miscounted originally and had 00 and 0 as the first two numbers once they realized) so I just picked a gift. There were so many, and I didn't want to take forever with everyone watching me pick a gift. So I just picked one that said "crackle" - turned out to be a red crackle glass votive which is pretty. Not super popular so no one stole it from me, and that's what I ended up with. It will be fine as a Christmas decoration, and like I said earlier, I wasn't that concerned with what I got! My gift was a hit though which made me happy - I ended up finding this cute foot massager thing made by Dr. Scholl's and it was traded the max three times including a stare-down between two people over it. That's the thing I don't get though - people get all pissy when someone takes their gift but that is the point of the whole thing to begin with so you can't really get upset.

Just now, my boss brought over this amazing gift basket of goodies for me. Did I mention I LOVE my job? I got this super cute basket I can use to put our Christmas cards in and inside there was homemade strawberry jam and pear butter, a giant gingerbread cookie, an awesome gift certificate to Nordstrom's, and a year subscription to Parent's Magazine! I couldn't believe it!!!! :) My co-recruiter and I went in together and got this 3-in-1 dessert station with smores supplies and sterno kit for our boss, but this is great! :)

Today is a good day - tomorrow will be slow I'm sure, but maybe I'll sneak my book in and catch up on some reading! LOL More posting tomorrow - but no belly pictures. As lucky as I am that I am just a growing belly up front and not other places, I do not really care to share my tummy with the whole wide world! I may take some professional shots in January and post one of those then depending on how it looks, but until then, you'll just have to imagine! :)