This previous holiday was very nice. Other than the horrible drive back (traffic was a nighmare, it took us 4.5 hours to make a 2.5 hour trip) it was very relaxing full of family and good food. I was extremely pleased with how well Justin and I picked gifts for my parents, my mom was happily surprised she got all the books she asked for, and I was surprised how excited my dad was about getting a Netflix trial. There were a few cases of duplicates, the DVD I gave my brother he already had, and both my parents and Justin’s parents got me GitS2. No worries though, the holiday is more about spending time with family (more now that Justin and I are not very local) than giving gifts. But I sure do like giving gifts, and Christmas is a good excuse to spoil people :)
I have decided that Amazon.com Wishlists are the greatest thing in the world. Not only is it a good way to remember which books (and other things) you have been meaning to get, it is the perfect way to create lists of variable priced items to share with friends and family to provide meaningful gift suggestions without horrible and embarassing test to see how well you know a person and if you can think of something clever to give them.
Take my mom for example. Shes not too computer savvy, but she loves the internet. When I asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she didnt really know what to tell me and Justin, let alone my sister, my dad, her family, her friends, etc. When she asked me what I wanted, I sent her (as well as Justin and his parents) a link to my Amazon Wishlist to not only get things I really needed (such as books I’ll use for school vs. some sweater in a color I would never wear), but to provide price and item options (some people feel more comfortable buying books as gifts, others would rather buy something like a houseware).
… and she loved the idea. Amazon does a wonderful job with their website and makes it extremely easy to purchase items from a list and send them wherever they need to go (when I moved to DC, I made a list of housewares I needed that she got me and shipped to my door instead of driving down and going shopping with me). Within a few hours she sent me a link to her own wishlist full of random things such as books, movies, perfume… all things that she wanted but had trouble compiling in to a list to send to people to coordinate with.
… and there is still the element of suprise. By default, Amazon will “guess” which holiday someone may be purchasing an item for (eg: Chistmas/Yule, Birthday) and keep the transaction of that item hidden so the owner of the list wont know if the item has been purchased or by who. When others access the list, the purchased items will no longer be listed so there wont be duplicate purchases. Well.. no duplicates provided everyone uses the wishlist to purchase the items, and not use the wishlist as a list to purchase items somewhere else. I suppose thats Amazon’s catch, hehe.
Heres some of the goodies I got *grin*:
Yeah, I know. American holidays are so materialistic. But its a great excuse for people who like to give gifts! I got Justin a black 4GB iPod Nano, DJ editing software (Acid Music Studio), a gift certificate to a vinyl retailer, and some other random things. He gave me some ideas of what he wanted, but the best gifts were the ones I thought of myself which he wasn’t expecting.
Anyway, what did you get for the holiday season? (I refuse to use the CHK bastardization)
seele :: Dec.27.2005 ::
Books, General, Life, Movies ::
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