Quite a few years ago my brother was a bit down in the wallet (kind of like we are now) and he did something we all really enjoyed and had a great laugh over for Christmas gifts. He was living in New York City at the time and all our family were still living in Mississippi. This was at a time before the coast had gambling boats and there was no lottery (I don’t think MS participates in a lottery still to this day). Anyway, he made cards for everyone, bought a lottery ticket or scratch off from there in NYC, and mailed them out to all of us. Some of us won some money and some did not. None of us won anything really huge, but it was fun as we sat around on Christmas and took turns checking to see if we won.
Well, the other day I bought a PowerBall ticket and a scratch off card for a friend of mine for a birthday present. I did not make the card, but the card is quite perfect anyway.
In this economy (and our run of luck with inflow verses outflow) we have not sent out any Christmas cards in a long time. This has bothered me greatly for many years. SmockDaddy and I do not give each other Christmas gifts; the budget is just too tight and we want to be sure each child has something to open on Christmas morning. This year will be no different. We were able to buy one particular item that will be a “family gift.” We have not decided if that gift will be a Santa gift and nothing from us or that gift from us and no Santa gift this year. It will most likely be a Santa gift as they know we are just too tight in the budget to buy gifts this year.
NOTE: if you are a church member, particularly a child or youth member at our church, reading this and my children find out about anything I wrote here in this post I ask you to respect the privacy of this blog and please do not discuss this with any of our children. Because my children will not be reading this.
They draw names each year to see to whom they will give a gift. We will draw those names on Thanksgiving Day. So they will have that one present to actually unwrap. Of course they will have a present from Grandma and GrandDaddy as well.
If I am able to give any gifts this year to extended family I may draw a card from my brother’s deck and get some scratch offs and/or a PowerBall ticket (I’ll watch to see if it goes up a bit, yesterday it was at $45,000,000.00. For the monetarily challenged, that’s 45 million dollars). We’ve not been able to give outside of giving to our children from year to year. That’s hurts. I made quilts for each of them last year. I don’t know what to make for them this year - it would have to be from something we already had anyway.
So if you receive a the winning PowerBall ticket from us this year that we meant to keep for ourselves remember the little people, OK? ;)
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
In the 70s, my parents were winners in the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes (yes, actual winners, not the “you may have already won” sort).
They won [drum roll] . . . FIVE DOLLARS!!!
Which, back then, was like winning, oh, about $7.50. And they got help publicizing their good fortune . . . they got a big, yellow bumpersticker that read “READER’S DIGEST SWEEPSTAKES WINNER” (no amount mentioned). That went in the scrapbook, not on the family car!
Cap’n - that’s a hoot! And I’m guessing that put them out of the running for any larger prize winnings of the future. Maybe? I always thought the RD was rigged anyway to only those who actually made a purchase of a subscription or books or something. They said it wasn’t, but I did not believe them. And thanks - formal and personal later.