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Another thing about Christmas gifts:  My younger brother was always one of the most difficult person to shop for, until last year when he became the easiest.

Last Christmas he called on December 23 to tell me he did in fact plan on coming to our house for Christmas, which was wonderful news.  It also meant that I wanted to scrounge up a few more presents for him to open so he wouldn't be sitting around all morning with one gift while the rest of us enjoyed the "ecstasy of unbridled avarice".  My first thought was that I wasn't leaving the house and I wasn't spending any money on him.  Breakthrough!  I had finally realized I needed to stop shopping for the fun uncle and see him in his true gift receiving form:  Pop, circa 1995, an eighty year old man who is careful with money and likes to work in the yard.

We all know Hunter will spend Christmas morning as any Texas grandfather would, standing around drinking coffee and periodically walking outside with his dog, always ready to pull a pocket knife  out of his pocket to aid the removal of tape from a gift.  He's the person who would also spend the rest of the day making gumbo with our dad.  Not gumbo for Christmas dinner- gumbo for, you know, the future.  Because Christmas day for grandfathers means making gumbo or napping sitting up in an arm chair.

 I already had for Hunter what I consider to be one of the top ten best gifts I've ever given, a small oak tree grown from an acorn in our yard, which had been growing for about 2 years.  To adding to that, I wrapped up all the ingredients and seasoning to make red beans and rice, along with the recipe, and a case of beer.  It was the equivalent of buying Pop cans of peanuts or a rubber snake to twine through the fence in his garden.

Now that I've cracked the code on Hunter, I'm doing my best to work on everyone else.  Because gift giving isn't about giving something to the person you think you know, it's about knowing who the person really is.  My brother, the 30-year-old 80-year-old man.