Do you have people in your life who are easy to shop for? My younger sister is one. Whether it’s her birthday or Christmas, I will be completey finished with all my shopping. Done. Finito. Not buying another thing. And then I’ll see the perfect candle, earrings, book … you name it. As a result, she always has lots more gifts at Christmas than anyone else in the family.
Then, on the other hand, there are those people for whom, it seems, finding the right gift is next to impossible. My personal trainer is one of them. He is a phenomenal guy, but I feel like I struggle every year to find the right gift for him. He eats only healthy, organic food … so gift baskets are out of the question. I know I’ve advocated them in other posts, but gift cards seem utterly impersonal. One year, I took a photo of him and traced it onto craft foam to create a little Scott White “doll,” for lack of a better word. I figured if famous people can have dolls – and he’s on his way to being famous – he should have one, too. It was kind of goofy, but kind of cool at the same time. And he must have liked it, because it’s still sitting on top of his kitchen counter, more than a year later.
So this year, I was just abo
ut out of ideas, until I remembered that I’d never made him a Christmas stocking. So off I trundled to Joann Fabric, in search of fabric that had weights or big biceps or anything that remotely resembled personal training. It was a bust. I found absolutely nothing that related in any way to personal training. Now this is a store that has John Deere fabric, horses, ballerinas, musical notes. You name the hobby or interest, and they’ve probably got fabric to match. I mean, I actually lost count of the different kinds of skull & crossbone prints. Pink skulls with bows, even! But there was nary a weightlifting/running/exercise print anywhere that I looked. (In Joann’s defense, I did not have time to comb through EVERY bolt of material. However, there was nothing in the vicinity of all the other prints I’ve mentioned – so I think I did a pretty good job of searching.)
So I did a quick mental inventory of Scott’s other interests (computers, mountain biking, surfing) and hit on the perfect one. He’s a businessman, right? So I found a few great money prints.
When I gave him the stocking, I told him about striking out with the personal training fabric, and he said, “No – I like this one better!” He told me he’d spent a lot of time looking for a nice stocking for his girlfriend and was disappointed at the cheap quality of the stockings for sale in most stores. Hell-o! Why do you think I’ve been hand-crafting them with love for all these years?
Bottom line: the gift was a hit. Because there really is a fabric to match almost any taste, hobby, sports team, alma mater, or state in the union, stockings do make great gifts!
By the Chimney With Care 