This is the first Christmas we have had while living in the Interior of British Columbia, that we haven’t had any snow on the ground. That is a bit jarring, considering we are sitting in the middle of the Canadian Rockies. Even though it didn’t look very much like Christmasy outside, our Christmas inside the house still worked as usual. We had put up our decades-old Christmas tree in the living room, getting all its lights to work was again a struggle, and we had friends over for snacks and visiting last night, on Christmas Eve.
My wife and I always exchange gifts, but that seemed very problematic this year. I just couldn’t think of anything to give her. We both already have so much stuff, and although I spent time looking around the few stores we have in McBride, nothing clicked. It was a depressing thought that I was going to come up empty-handed for her on Christmas morning, but things were sure headed in that direction.
Fortunately, I did finally figured something out: Months ago, I couldn’t find my tiny Swiss Army Knife, which I was constantly using. It had a small blade, fingernail file, scissors, tweezers, and toothpick. I was bummed out at misplacing it, so I bought a new one.
Of course, as soon as I got the new knife home, I found the old one, so the new one remained in a drawer unused. Since I find the knife so useful, I thought maybe my wife might also find one useful, so I gifted her the new one I bought, which she was really happy to receive.
My wife, who was also having trouble trying to come up with a gift for me, found some men’s house slippers online. My old ones were certainly falling apart, and I was usually walking around with the insoles wadded up under my feet. The sizes offered were not conventional, but in her desperation, she ordered them.
She warned me as I was opening the package, that she feared they might be too small. I put them on, and they really did seem too small, crunching up my toes. I then tried walking in them, and they were very painful to the front of my toes. We figured they would end up as a donation to the second hand store. I hated to give up on them, and put my hand into one of them, to see if there was some way I could change them so they would fit.
It was then that I discovered that there was a tight wad of paper stuck in each shoe, to keep them puffed up during shipping. Once I removed the wad of paper, the house slippers fit perfectly, so despite the lack of snow, our Christmas worked out wonderfully.
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