Christmas Wish List

My brother Bob is always creative in coming up with a Christmas wish list.  He tends to write them in a way that ensures my mom will get him everything on the list.  My Mom and Dan have both asked me what I want for my birthday/Christmas.  It's hard when you're turning 31 to tell someone what you want for a gift.  Anything I really want I got last year (Ipod and Bose sound system).  I'm pretty content for right now.  I don't like to have every gadget and gismo, but the Ipod has been a real effective stress management tool for me this year.  Combined with the Bose Ipod dock player I call it a slam dunk gift.  Considering we are able to legally download music here in China for free from googlemusic.cn, it had been one great gift.

I suggested Dan might buy out my Amazon shopping cart for my gift.  I tend to shop there all year long and never buy the stuff I put in the cart.  I went to check it out, and I had items from one year ago--a book written by Mary Lincoln's dress maker, a parenting book, and a couple other items.  I deleted some and beefed it up with The complete series of the Dick Van Dyke show on DVD, complete series of Gilligan's Island, the complete series of The Andy Griffith show, Bush's new book Decision Points, several Christmas classic DVDs (The Christmas Story, Christmas in Connecticut, Charlie Brown's Holiday specials, etc. etc.).  It's actually been really enjoyable.  These are the kind of joys we get living over here in China, shopping on Amazon.com and looking forward to the new TV series we will be able to watch come January.  You'd be amazed how entertaining Andy Griffith is when your options are that or Chinese soap operas in Chinese.