ON PRESENTS, AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GIVING AND RECEIVING

Well, I gotta tells ya, I love receiving presents. Receiving presents is tops. But when it comes to my family, what I really love is finding presents. There's a moment, when I'm standing in the shop, and I'm either there for a clearly-viewed purpose or just because I had a vague idea that something would be within these walls, and I see the perfect gift for one of my family and the thrill of AHA! zings across my skin..... brilliant.

This year, we made out like bandits.

The sushi kit I gave Lyn, the make-your-own-brain kit for Aiden, Blake's CSI facial reconstruction kit, the PS2 version of the Playboy Mansion game that Cassie's been begging after for two years and is now old enough to actually have, Erin's Dora the Explorer toy computer, and Connor's...... well, everything, really. He is two..... everybody got something that dropped the jaw, lit up the eyes, and resulted in a chest-hug and happy-squirm. The gifts were many, and varied, and some of them were bought and some of them were hand-made, and all of them were greeted with thanks and hugs and the occasional kiss. Christmas may be grossly commercial, and designed to skin your flint, but the truth is that it's really what you make of it, and we managed to make it about giving this year.

And then there were the books.

Last year, Lyn told me the story of her childhood book. I told her how my best friend Seanie and I used to buy each other second hand books for Christmas when we were poor struggling Uni students. And we looked at each other, and a light went on over our heads. And we decided that we would buy each other a secondhand book every Christmas: something used, and loved, and on a subject that the other wouldn't buy for themself but will find cool when they get it.

It's not the getting, it's the finding.

So this year, I received a book listing the 100 things that influenced Australia most throughout the 20th century (and ohhhh, the arguments I could have....) , and Lyn recieved Gladiatrix: Story of the Unknown Female Warrior, an examination and discussion regarding a European archaeological find wherein lies a female warrior figure unseen in any other ancient grave site.

Next year, who knows? It's going to be fun finding out, though.