{"id":29669,"date":"2015-12-09T21:14:31","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T02:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=29669"},"modified":"2016-11-15T15:35:35","modified_gmt":"2016-11-15T20:35:35","slug":"this-years-angel-tree-package","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=29669","title":{"rendered":"This Year’s Angel Tree Package"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week was… not the best.<\/p>\n

I should clarify. It wasn’t bad<\/i>. It was simply stressful. And hectic. And tense. And all of the things that a week that where the catalog and orders go to press usually is.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, the week ended with the Nerd Prom — the Employee Appreciation Party (or the Christmas Party) — and after the week that had been, the Nerd Prom was muchly needed.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Christmas tree in the office lobby was put up, and it was decorated, as it always is, with stockings for the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program.<\/p>\n

On the Angel Tree Package<\/a><\/h3>
\"\"<\/a><\/div>

I mentioned a few days ago that I was putting together an Angel Tree package at the office. I talked about that here. Tonight I finished wrapping the thing, and tomorrow I’m going to take it to the office. MY work will be done. The tag I picked off the…<\/p>

Read more…<\/em><\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>I did the Angel Tree for the first time three years ago — and enjoyed it<\/a> — but for various reasons, mainly not checking the tree at the right time, I didn’t the last two years.<\/p>\n

As I walked past the tree Wednesday afternoon — or was it Tuesday? — I looked at the stockings on the tree, saw one for a “Boy Age 7,” and took it. My week had been overwhelming to some extent, and the thought of helping someone who needed help I saw as a way of balancing the karmic scales.<\/p>\n

(Yes, the Salvation Army sucks<\/a>, and there are sound reasons for never, ever associating with them, but there’s also a seven year-old boy who needs something for Christmas. I can overlook the Salvation Army’s problematic aspects if I can use them to help a person.)<\/p>\n

Unlike three years ago, where I had a hang tag that had a short want list and clothing sizes, all I had to go on this year was “Boy Age 7.” I then got some clarification from Human Resources about whether or not I had to use the stocking; after all, three years ago I didn’t<\/a>. I was told that I could put anything in whatever I wanted; the little bit to identify the recipient was all that was necessary, and it needed to be visible. I could work with that.<\/p>\n

Clothing was out — I had no idea what size to buy for, and I didn’t want to take a chance of buying the wrong size. “A gift receipt!” you’re thinking, and I considered that, but then I thought through the problem — would this child have an adult who able and willing to go to the store I bought the clothing from to exchange it? I sadly realized that wasn’t an assumption I could make.<\/p>\n

I settled on following the gameplan from three years ago — buy a bunch of small, inexpensive stuff, wrap it individually, then box it in a Diamond shipping box and wrap that.<\/p>\n

Let’s see what I did.<\/p>\n

\"20151208_195057\"<\/p>\n

That’s the stuff, except for three things that I left on my coffee table, pre-wrapping.<\/p>\n

\"20151208_195339\"<\/p>\n

I decided early on that I wanted to get my Angel Tree recipient some coloring books. And I did — I found two at Ollie’s Bargain Outlet that I thought would work. One was a Spider-Man coloring book, the other was a Star Wars Rebels<\/i> coloring book. Coloring books require crayons, so I picked up a box of crayons at Big Lots Saturday night before the Nerd Prom.<\/p>\n

\"20151208_200002\"<\/p>\n

Also picked up at Big Lots on Saturday night, this set of Batman<\/i>-themed Hot Wheels cars!<\/p>\n

\"20151208_200951\"<\/p>\n

Friday morning I stopped at Target before work to buy Coldplay’s newest (and possibly final) album, A Head Full of Dreams<\/i>. I saw this LEGO set and picked it up at the same time. (It also almost got put back when I couldn’t find the Coldplay album. I eventually<\/i> located it; even though it was release day, it had been banished to the back of an endcap. Thank you, Coldplay, for being there!)<\/p>\n

Not pictured, there was also an off-brand LEGO-compatible building set of a fighter jet that I found at Big Lots. It was a decent sized set, about 160 pieces. This gave him two things to build and play with — the TIE Fighter and a fighter jet. I, personally, was more interested in the road construction crew set Big Lots had — it had a concrete truck! — but since I’d already purchased the TIE Fighter, I wanted something else air-related so they could dogfight.<\/p>\n

\"20151208_202035\"<\/p>\n

I thought my recipient needed puzzles. I bought three. One was a lenticular Avengers<\/i> puzzle, and then I bought these two Star Wars<\/i> puzzles.<\/p>\n

\"20151208_202806\"<\/p>\n

I wanted to give him a book of some sort, but I had no idea what to give him. (For Christmas when I was seven, my parents gave me a copy of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos<\/i>. The year before, so when I was six, or it may actually have been the year before, they gave me The Chronicles of Narnia<\/i>. These weren’t helpful touchpoints.)<\/p>\n

I saw this book, The Peter Yarrow Songbook: Favorite Folk Songs<\/i>, at Ollie’s, and I was instantly taken by it. It’s a picture book, and two dozen classic folk songs are printed and illustrated. Plus, there’s a CD of Peter Yarrow (the Peter of Peter, Paul, and Mary) performing the song. It, too, was the sort of thing my parents would have given me at that age.<\/p>\n

Not pictured, I also bought a book on the Smurfs at Ollies. It was a cute introduction to the characters.<\/p>\n

\"20151208_201723\"<\/p>\n

This I pulled from my personal collection. Patrick Mconnell’s Mutts<\/i>, which chronicles the adventures of the cat Mooch and the dog Earl, is one of my favorite comic strips, and it would be the right speed for a seven year-old.<\/p>\n

Not pictured, there was also a Transformers<\/i> calendar that I bought at Dollar Tree. Also not pictured (and not wrapped, because there was no good way to wrap it) was the first issue of Titan Magazines’ Star Wars Rebels<\/i> magazine; this was left on the giveaway table at the office a few weeks ago, and I decided to pass it on.<\/p>\n

\"20151208_210057\"<\/p>\n

And here’s the resulting wrapped packages.<\/p>\n

I then sat down and wrote out by hand a short letter from Santa Claus to the little boy about the important things in life. Then I discovered that I no longer have any idea how to write the word “Santa” in cursive. (I can do my signature. Otherwise, I’ve forgotten cursive altogether.)<\/p>\n

\"20151208_210323\"<\/p>\n

I didn’t have a lot of room left over, and I couldn’t have fit anything else into the box even if I’d wanted to.<\/p>\n

\"20151208_211621\"<\/p>\n

I taped up the box then wrapped it in A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/i> paper that I also<\/i> bought at Big Lots on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

This morning I took the box into work, taped the necessary identifying materials to one side, and turned the package over to Human Resources.<\/p>\n

All told, not counting the Mutts<\/i> book out of my personal library, this came in under thirty dollars. The most expensive things were the Peter Yarrow book and the LEGO-esque jet fighter; each of these were five dollars. My goal was to buy strategically, to get a lot of things, and I’m sure there’s stuff there that I’m sure he’ll enjoy. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I can’t fix the world. Sometimes, in my darker moments, I’m not even sure I can fix myself. I can make things better for one person, though, at least for one day. I’ll count that as a win.<\/p>\n

Merry Christmas, little boy. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week was… not the best. I should clarify. It wasn’t bad. It was simply stressful. And hectic. And tense. And all of the things that a week that where the catalog and orders go to press usually is. Thankfully, the week ended with the Nerd Prom — the Employee Appreciation Party (or the ChristmasContinue reading <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[229],"tags":[236,4011,64,4255,4256,4254,4114,4253,346,4124],"class_list":["post-29669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-work","tag-angel-tree","tag-avengers","tag-christmas","tag-mutts","tag-patrick-mcdonnell","tag-peter-yarrow","tag-star-wars","tag-star-wars-rebels","tag-transformers","tag-work","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}