Books and Clothes

Many, many years ago, a few days before Christmas one of my little nephews confined in me,  “I sure hope I don’t get books and clothes again this Christmas.” Unbeknownst to him, his gift from me was cowboy boots.  Giving little boys cowboy boots is one of life’s delightful pleasures.  He was very happy with his boots and I’m sure they were worn to pieces, however the phrase ‘books and clothes’ has never worn out and became our pat answer for all future gift giving occasions.

“Hey, want to know what I got you for your birthday?  ….Books and Clothes”.

Of course one can measure how old one is by how much they now actually like books and clothes as presents.  Yep, I like them a lot!

It is Number Two Son’s birthday and he loves books and clothes, especially books.  We do give him things other than books and clothes, just not very often.  This year’s present…yes, we nailed it!  It came about only because we live in the country and people/men talk about hunting.  It is hunting season, so they/men talk about hunting a lot.  Actually, they/men do talk about it all year, it is just that their hunting stories now are current stories, as opposed to their stories the rest of the year when they/men talk about old hunting stories.  If a hunting story is especially impressive, they/men will even share someone else’s hunting story.  Such was the case the other night when My Loving Spouse was telling the story of our neighbor the Fire Captain’s championship (that term might not actually be completely correct, as I might not have been paying the proper ‘hunting story attention’) elk hunting story.  The thing about hunting stories is that they seldom end.  A hunting story is started, which leads to another hunting story, which leads to… and so forth and so on.  This time though, the hunting story ‘ramble’ was a great thing.  My Loving Spouse mentioned bow hunting.  (City folks…bow and arrow…Robin Hood).  Number Two Son’s eyes lit up.  “Oh, I think I’d like that!”…and I realized he would.  Even as a little guy when given the opportunity for adventurous games and opportunities, he’d make a bee line for the archery area.

We jumped on the hunt (shopping) to find him a compound bow, which is modern and fancy (I’m pretty sure this is not the correct hunting technical term, but I am going with it as it looks pretty fancy to me).  We were hoping to be able to give him his bow present a few days early while his brother would still be at the farm.  After all, a bow and arrow is pretty neat, but being able to ‘play’ with your brother with it, well, that is just even better.

My Loving Spouse and I found a great deal and picked up the present Friday evening.  I said, “We’ll wait until Number Two gets off work tomorrow to give it to him.”

“What?”  My Loving Spouse has Attention Gift Giving Disorder.  If you are unaware of this issue it plays out like this, he buys a present and gives the present in the same hour, even if the gift giving event is days or weeks away.

“We can’t give it to them tonight, they’ll want to play with it in the dark.”

“What?  No, they won’t… they’ll wait until tomorrow”.  So we gave into the Disorder and the delight of giving him his gift.

There was also a tutorial presentation by My Loving Spouse about never removing hunting tips with your fingers, but to always use a special tool as those babies are sharp, which luckily did not require stitches, but has resulted in a new packet of bandaging supplies.  Nice for him to take one for the team and leave a lasting impression for the boys.

“Mom, do we really have to wait until tomorrow to shoot it?”  See, I knew it.  Out came a bale of straw to shoot into and the truck driven out to the site left running to provide light from its headlights, as Number Two tried out his new bow, in the dark.

Number One Son said, “It is a pretty neat present.  You gave it to the right one, as he is clearly the best at it”.

So, Number Two Son, we love you.  We love that you love your gift and for Christmas…yep, you’re back to books and clothes.